SUMMARY
This article describes how to create a Microsoft Installer Package (MSI) for installing third-party programs. If you want to install a third-party program by using this method, you must install a copy of Veritas Software Console by Seagate Software at a location that is accessible by the reference computer. This program is available on the Windows 2000 CD-ROM in Valueadd\3rdparty\Mgmt\Winstle\Swiadmle.msi. This includes a copy of WinINSTALL limited edition, which allows for basic functionality.

Definitions
Instruction File
An instruction file (Microsoft Installer package) contains information about what needs to be done to install a product.
Clean PC
A clean PC is defined as a computer with only the following items on it before you run Discover: • The operating system
• The service packs for the operating system
If you install Veritas Software Console (or any other product) on the computer, it is by definition no longer a clean PC. You must install Veritas Software Console somewhere, but not on the clean PC.
Reference Computer
A clean PC ensures that the Discover program will pick up all files and registry entries necessary for the program to run.

The reference computer should have access to the Discover program (Discoz.exe) in the Winstall folder from My Network Places, Windows Explorer, or the Run command on the Start menu. Do not map a drive to the Winstall share. Doing so may cause Discover to pick up the added drive, possibly causing problems in your Microsoft Installer packages.
Discover
The Discover program is the program you use to create the instruction file (Microsoft Installer package) that contains information about what needs to be done to install a product.

Back to the top

How to Create a Third-Party MSI Package
For this process to work properly, you should start with a clean PC. 1. Start with a clean PC, or one that is representative of the computers in your network.
2. Start Discover to take a picture of the representative PC’s software configuration. This is the Before snapshot.
3. Install a program on the PC on which you took the Before snapshot.
4. Reboot the PC.
5. Run the new program to verify that it works.
6. Quit the program.
7. Start Discover and take an After snapshot of the PC’s new configuration. Discover compares the Before and the After snapshots and notes the changes. It creates a Microsoft Installer package with information about how to install that program on such a PC in the future.
8. (Optional) Use Veritas Software Console to customize the Microsoft Installer package.
9. Clean the reference computer to prepare to run Discover again.
10. (Optional) Perform a test installation of the program on non-production workstations.
To obtain support for Veritas Software Console, please contact Veritas.

More From pstilgoe

• How to auto populate InfoPath forms using the people picker
• Import data from CSV and SQL to a SharePoint list
• How to embed a powerpoint presentation into a Sharepoint page

Ask pstilgoe To Recommend Your Posts

Deploying and upgrading software
Updated: January 21, 2005
 

Deploying and upgrading software
You can deploy and upgrade software to remote computers in managed environments by using Group Policy Software Installation to assign Windows Installer packages. Windows Installer packages are deployed and managed within a Group Policy object, which is in turn associated with a particular Active Directory container–either a site, a domain, or an organizational unit. You can use Add or Remove programs in Control Panel to install, upgrade, or manage an application on a local computer. You can also use Remote Desktop Connection to install or upgrade an application by using Add or Remove programs on a remote computer. For more information, see Add or Remove programs overview and Remote Desktop Connection.

Some of the most common tasks are deploying software to remote computers, upgrading software on remote computers, and installing or upgrading software on a local computer.

To deploy software to remote computers
1.
Open Group Policy Object Editor.

2.
Do one of the following:

• To assign software applications to computers, in the console tree, double-click Computer Configuration.

• To assign or publish software applications to users, in the console tree, double-click User Configuration.

3.
Double-click Software Settings, and then click Software Installation.

Where?

• Group Policy object/Computer Configuration or User Configuration/Software Settings/Software Installation

4.
Right-click Software Installation, click New, and then click Package.

5.
Click the Windows Installer package you want to assign, and then click Open.

6.
In Deploy Software, click Assigned.

Notes

• To complete this procedure, you must be logged on as a member of the Domain Administrators security group, the Enterprise Administrators security group, or the Group Policy Creator Owners security group.

• Group Policy Software Installation is available to computers running Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, and the Windows Server 2003 family in an Active Directory environment.

• To use Group Policy Software Installation, you must create a new Group Policy object or edit an existing Group Policy object for a site, domain, or organizational unit. You can also link a Group Policy object to a site, domain, or organizational unit in Active Directory Users and Computers or Active Directory Sites and Services. For more information about ways to open Group Policy Object Editor, see Group Policy.

• Many software applications come with Windows Installer packages (.msi files). For more information, see your software manufacturer’s documentation.

Top of page
To upgrade software on remote computers
1.
Open Group Policy Object Editor.

2.
Do one of the following:

• To upgrade software applications on remote computers, in the console tree double-click, Computer Configuration.

• To upgrade software applications for users, in the console tree, double-click User Configuration.

3.
Double-click Software Settings, and then click Software Installation.

Where?

• Group Policy object/Computer Configuration or User Configuration/Software Settings/Software Installation

4.
Right-click Software Installation, click New, and then click Package.

5.
Click the Windows Installer package that will serve as the upgrade package, and then click Open.

6.
In Deploy Software, click Assigned.

7.
In the details pane, right-click the Windows Installer package that will function as the upgrade (not the package to be upgraded).

8.
Click properties, and then click the Upgrades tab.

9.
Click Add to create or add to the list of packages that are to be upgraded by the current package.

10.
Under Choose a package from, click Current Group Policy object (GPO) or A specific GPO as the source of the package to be upgraded. If you click A specific GPO, click Browse, and then click the Group Policy object that you want.

11.
Review the list of packages under Package to upgrade, which lists all of the other packages that are assigned or published within the selected Group Policy object. Depending on the Group Policy object, this list may have zero or more entries.

12.
Click the package that you want to upgrade, and then do one of the following:

• To replace an application with a completely different application, click Uninstall the existing package, then install the upgrade package.

• To install a newer version of the same product while retaining the user’s application preferences, click Package can upgrade over the existing package.

13.
On the Upgrades tab, select the Required upgrade for existing packages check box if you want the upgrade to be mandatory. If this is an upgrade under Computer Configuration in the Group Policy console tree, the check box is unavailable and selected, because packages can only be assigned to computers, not published.

Notes

• To complete this procedure, you must be logged on as a member of the Domain Administrators security group, the Enterprise Administrators security group, or the Group Policy Creator Owners security group.

• Group Policy Software Installation is available to computers running Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, and the Windows Server 2003 family in an Active Directory environment.

• To use Group Policy Software Installation, you must create a new Group Policy object or edit an existing Group Policy object for a site, domain, or organizational unit. You can also link a Group Policy object to a site, domain, or organizational unit in Active Directory Users and Computers or Active Directory Sites and Services. For more information about ways to open Group Policy Object Editor, see Group Policy.

• Many software applications come with Windows Installer packages (.msi files). For more information, see your software manufacturer’s documentation.

Top of page
To install or upgrade software on a local computer by using Add or Remove programs
1.
Open Add or Remove programs in Control Panel.

2.
Click Add New programs, and then click CD or Floppy.

3.
Follow the instructions on your screen.

Notes

• To open Add or Remove programs, click Start, click Control Panel, and then double-click Add or Remove programs.

• When using Add or Remove programs, you can only install programs that were written for Windows operating systems.

More From pstilgoe

• Creating filtered views in Sharepoint
• Creating a scheduled email reminder using Sharepoint Designer
• How to report on users & groups in Active Directory domains

Ask pstilgoe To Recommend Your Posts

By Jay Finnan, Portfolio Sales Manager at Sedo

I’m frequently asked about the latest trends in domain investing. Where are the pros putting their money? What are the new, ground floor opportunities only a select few know about? What are the secrets, tips and tricks of the successful in this industry? With those questions in mind I asked some of my favorite clients, colleagues and peers (a mastermind of domainerati if you will) what they thought are the best opportunities in the domain industry right now. I got a lot of different responses but several were echoed throughout my conversations. Here I’ll discuss the four best opportunities for domainers in 2007.

CO.UK Domains

What’s the best buy in domains at the moment? Of all the top-level domains (TLDs) we discussed .CO.UK came up the most. Why are the pros so excited about the United Kingdom’s top level domain? A well wired, well educated population of some 60 million English speaking people, who do business all over the world, lies behind an extension that has seen its share of good sales and is still due for many more. .CO.UK is the TLD of choice for most UK developers since it provides the inherent filtering they’re looking for and it has become a sufficiently well branded extension to compete with the .COM. This combination means a lot of natural, type in traffic for generic .CO.UK domains. What’s even better? The root advertiser pays in Sterling.

Spanish Language Domains

More than a couple of the people I spoke to considered Spanish language .COMs at the top of their buy list at the moment. There are still gems left to be registered here. Or so claimed one of my favorite clients, who even went as far as saying he could periodically find generic Spanish .COMs with considerable type in traffic available to register and many more on the secondary market at fair prices. As good as the sales have been for descriptive Spanish domains, its definitely a space where deals can be found with a lot more regularity than their English counterparts. Though they’re excited about the space, all cautioned that a good command of the language was a prerequisite to finding the right deals.

Financing

Among the many things my mastermind group was especially excited about was the ability to finance domain purchases. Thanks to companies like Domain Capital, which offers domain financing for small, medium and large scale domain purchases, more buyers are in the market. Prices are getting more competitive and deals are getting done. Even for domain investors, this is becoming a preferred way to lock up key investment opportunities that they don’t immediately have the cash for.

Lucrative Sales Opportunities

That brings me to our most discussed opportunity. Most of my mastermind group weren’t as excited about what to buy, as much as they were about the prices their domains could fetch now. There have never been as many buyers in the market as there are now and more are entering the market every day. Of course many are new to the market and are uncertain of value. But the money is there to make some great sales on an individual and portfolio basis. The latter is especially interesting as more aggressive buyers have entered the portfolio market. The old model of using a base multiple of parking stats is being trumped by more aggressive buyers that are willing to consider resale value and all cash flows.

Turning domains into cash can lead to much bigger opportunities with the right plan. Such is the opinion of John Reese, founder and CEO of income.com. I got the chance to chat with Mr. Reese the night before he delivered his keynote speech at a recent domain conference in Las Vegas, Nevada. Reese attributes the sale of ship.com early in his career as the vital key he needed to invest more heavily into the market, which eventually led him to millions. Similar statements were echoed by all the investors I spoke to. There’s no better time to negotiate than now. A lot of new buyers are in the market and they’re prepared to invest for endgame purposes of the domain. The key of course is having a plan for the revenue once you’ve sold. If you’re selling to buy into a more lucrative opportunity then there’s no worry to be had about leaving money on the table.

More From pstilgoe

• Creating filtered views in Sharepoint
• ‘Cheating’ the search engines
• Lapsed domain names bought in seconds

Ask pstilgoe To Recommend Your Posts

We have come to expect a lot of search engines.

Type in a phrase, and we not only expect it to find millions of relevant websites, but we also expect it to list the best or most important sites first.

Woe betide a search engine that requires me to click to page two of the results before I find the site I am looking for.

Generally they do a decent job but, up until very recently, if you were to search on the term “miserable failure”, top of the Google search results was the official George Bush page on the official White House site.

Bush trick

This is an example of how even the biggest search engines can be manipulated.

Essentially, the web is a collection of pages, all linking to each other.

If you are searching for something, search engines like Google, Ask, and Yahoo! will first find all the pages they think are relevant.

Then, crucially, they need to decide which order to display search results in. One of the most important factors in deciding how relevant particular sites are is to count how many other sites link to it.

The more references, or links there are to a site, the more important it is deemed to be.

Because lots of people quote and link the BBC website, for example, the BBC site is seen as relevant and a good hit. That is why the site ranks quite highly for many search terms.

An underground movement of bloggers exploited this fact, to create a “link bomb”. They encouraged thousands of their peers to include a link to the Bush homepage in their blogs, and label it “miserable failure”.

With all of these links, the main search engine algorithms were fooled into thinking this was a relevant result for that search term, and Bush was driven to the top of the rankings. Mr Bush had been link bombed.

Politicians have been targeted by bloggers

At first, the search engines ignored it – it was not their job to censor search results, however controversial.

Nor did they censor other link bombs – googling “liar” would show Tony Blair’s homepage first.

Link bombs are usually self-defeating – as they become successful, other popular sites begin to discuss the bombs, and end up becoming more popular than the link bomb, driving it from number one.

Apostolos Gerasoulis, co-inventor of search technology for Ask.com said: “I don’t think this is the problem though. This is just fun.”

“Why we don’t remove it, or why the search engines don’t remove it, is because as long as we give relevant results for most of the queries that you type then we’re OK.

“The impact of this bombing, as it is called, is minimal, insignificant. It might be two or three examples,” he added.

Google decided to tweak its search algorithm to spot link bombs, and the miserable failure dropped away. On other search engines, such as Ask, it remains high.

If they build the right page, it is OK, if they build a great page it’s OK but the problem comes when they really try to cheat you

Apostolos Gerasoulis search expert

The link bomb actually achieved what any business would love to have – the number one search result in their category.

The ideal place to be is in the centre of the search result, the so-called natural search result, online marketer Fadi Shuman, explained.

“You get 80% of the clicks from the natural results. That is where we all want to be. The way to achieve that is through search engine optimisation.”

Optimisation is produced by making the website as visible to search engines as possible and having other sites linking to it.

However search engine optimisation also has a darker side.

Blacklisted

In February 2006, BMW Germany got into hot water over its website.

The problem was that the site was laden with keywords which customers could not see, but which search engines could.

They were there specifically to boost the rankings. Google has rules to guard against so-called black hat methods – specifically, “don’t present different content to search engines than you do to your users”.

Once discovered, Google blacklisted the site and dropped it from their search results altogether until BMW redesigned the site.

Jason Duke, search engine optimiser, said: “We try and persuade people to link to us, whether that be via content, whether that be via methods of creating controversy in the marketplace.”

It is an ongoing battle of sorts, between the search engines and the optimisers who would love to work the system to their clients’ advantage. Although both sides prefer to call it an uneasy truce.

Mr Gerasoulis added: “If they build the right page, it’s OK, if they build a great page, it’s OK. But the problem comes when they really try to cheat you.”

More From pstilgoe

• How to make the filter choices display by default in the DVWP
• How can I configure the system to let users change their passwords without logging on to the domain?
• Sharepoint Search – How features work part 1

Ask pstilgoe To Recommend Your Posts