3 replies to this topic

[tsauerbeck]

Hi folks,
can someone give me some links to information about how MSI supports network installations?
I need to know whether network installations are possible at all with MSI and how I'd implement the necessary functions in my setup.

Thanks for any hints,
Tilman

[hambone]

network installs are performed natively in msi using the /a switch on the install line. this invokes the actions in the AdminUISequence and AdminExecuteSequence tables. typically this involves 'exploding' the contents of the MSI to a directory...

perhaps you could define what you mean by 'network install' ? 'install to server and run from ws' ? 'run from source'

[tsauerbeck]

What I mean is "install to a server and run from a workstation"... Does this work with COM Servers as well? Those COM servers are supposed to store their class info etc in the registry, so ...

When I install my COM-enabled software on the server and start it from a workstation, are the COM servers registered automatically?

[Stefan Krueger]

You could perform an admin install on the server (which will place an uncompressed image on the server). Then run the setup from the server on the clients, selection "run from source" for all components. Thus all files will stay on the server, but registry entries and shortcuts will be generated on the client.