Customising msi's for SOE deployment
How do people currently customise their generic applications (adobe acrobat reader) for deployment into their organisation ?As I have created a SaaS application (beta) that will allow customisation by creating a mst from just specifying tables changes through custom XML.
Answers (3)
Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Reader, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, SAP GUI, Adobe Creative Suit etc.. ect.. should be customized using vendor provided customization tool only..
i.e, If the vendor is providing any customization tool for thier product then you will have to use the same to customize the installation/configuration..
if MSI , then mostly thru MST / MSP or Comandline.
Most "Generic" applications have their own "tuning" tools to give the sysadmin the possibility to configure / change the setup.
let me know why you have something like this created,.. I know there is also a tool called SetupCommander which is like a SUPER tuner... automatically gives you ALL the options to configure the setup by detecting the vendor , application name and version.
more info: http://www.setupcommander.com/
In my organisation we touch every application, 'generic' or not.
We disable automatic updates, remove unnecessary shortcuts and accept EULAs etc. The application is also branded with our internal application reference number, so that it is easily identifiable.
We also hide ARP change/modify/remove buttons and suppress reboots.
This makes for a management environment, where an end-user can't touch the installation themselves, everything is done through the deployment tool.
As for Adobe Reader, Adobe have a Customization Tool for their products, with a nice GUI to select options that pumps out an MST to run the the MSI.
Hope that helps,
Dunnpy
