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Packaging for Windows 7 OS

Has someone already experience in packaging for windows 7 with Wise Package Studio? I will migrate Packages (created for WIN XP) and repackage new Packages based on Windows 7. Comments, hints and your experience in Application compatibility are welcome.[/align]Thanks in advance[/align] [/align]

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Answers (10)

Posted by: DeployTech 14 years ago
Orange Senior Belt
0
The big thing I found was to test your packages on Windows 7 to see if they work as expected. Saves a bunch of rework if they go ok.
Posted by: Chipster 14 years ago
Blue Belt
0
WPS bugs me now. It's not a windows 7 issue per se because it existed with Vista, but it's still a major PITA. Of all the applications that i use, Wise is the only one that triggers UAC when launched. Because of this, you can't easily doubleclick a .wse file and have it open up. I've moved to Windows 7 now and remember this being one of the primary reasons i turned off UAC when i was tinkering with Vista. It's beyond comprehension why WPS hasn't been updated in 3 years.

Has anyone seen any information on some sort of upcoming updates for Wise/Altiris/Symantec Package Studio?
Posted by: sbequette 14 years ago
Orange Belt
0
Symantic letting it die on the vine is the reason my group is seriously looking at Install Shield after 10 years with Wise.
Posted by: Chipster 14 years ago
Blue Belt
0
I never liked installshield for various reasons but I'm thinking the same thing as you. The inclusion of creating App-V packages at the same time of creating the install itself is intriguing and might be the very reason why I decide to jump ship. I'll miss the ability to copy/paste code between wise and SMS Installer though.
Posted by: kkaminsk 14 years ago
9th Degree Black Belt
0
I'd agree, most sites I go to have a packaging team in place and the installers are good enough for a direct port. Just make sure to perform testing on the installer and more importantly the application. The most common issue I am seeing with installers is the custom actions written by packagers that do not conform to the new security model (or should I say enforced) for custom actions.
Posted by: Chipster 14 years ago
Blue Belt
0
I've been a member of the Wrapper club for years. I have shunned the people who claim that the "Repackagers" are better for one reason or another and fortunately, because of that, I think that a transition to a new product will be easier because my code is easy to port. Years ago, I came up with 2 templates; one that emails, one that doesn't, for my starting points. The simplest wrappers I put in the info about the product, and the file name and type (exe or msi) and the variables take over from there. Out of around 1000 installations created, less than 5% have been repackages. So the only custom actions I have to deal with, are the ones created by Vendors that don't know their a$$ from a hole in the ground. :)
Posted by: turbokitty 14 years ago
6th Degree Black Belt
0
In the latest version of the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT 5.5) there is a "Setup Analysis Tool".

I have yet to use it, but it might be worth a look.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc749539%28WS.10%29.aspx
Posted by: Chipster 14 years ago
Blue Belt
0
I just recently completed a week long app compat workshop sponsored by microsoft. We looked at 1100 machines and got something like 6000 applications back from the whole thing. The Application Compatibility Toolkit can get a lot of information on a lot of applications out there. As it goes through the usage of the apps, it picks up where apps try to write to or access that could be problems. The issue with that is that just because an app registers something as an issue doesn't mean that it will be a problem.

That being said, one of the items that we played a little bit with was the setup analyzer tool. It did a good job of picking up things that would be an issue on install, like files to c:\windows, etc. The end result is an xml file that's then dumped into the database log folder to ultimately be reviewed with the rest of the applications.

There's also another piece that will analyze the websites visited for IE 8 compatability. I only ran that one to test.

Overall, I'm still sifting through the apps trying to determine problems that we might encounter and am torn with using existing GPO fixes or shimming apps to make them work. So far, I just can't see shims as being my answer. Time will tell if that's the case though.
Posted by: turbokitty 14 years ago
6th Degree Black Belt
0
I've completed two ACT engagements and I've found that most of the apps identified as having issues do not require shimming for several reasons:
1) The app vendor already has a Vista (W7) compatible version available
2) The app is not of enough value to the organization, so it can be discarded
3) The "issue" is automatically remedied with the built in W7 registry and file virtualization

I see ACT and shimming as being useful for organizations that have critical internally-developed applications. If most of your organization has mostly common off-the-shelf apps, you'll probably run into little trouble with app compatibility.

From a packaging point of view, the "Setup Analysis Tool" shows promise in assisting us with identifying MSI issues. I'm not sure if Adminstudio has a similar tool? I'm sure Wise doesn't.
Posted by: turbokitty 14 years ago
6th Degree Black Belt
0
Moderator: can we move this to the packaging forum?
Rating comments in this legacy AppDeploy message board thread won't reorder them,
so that the conversation will remain readable.
 
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