Truecrypt with Vista?

[FN-GM]

Is anyone using Truecrypt with Vista please?

If so how is that going?

Thanks

[AngryTechnician]

Seems to work fine, though I've only tried in in container mode.

I only wish that there was an MSI for it. I've tried to repackage it myself but the COM registration that sets up the UAC exceptions don't work, so even once the kernel driver is installed it still requires a UAC elevation (on XP once the driver is installed you don't need admin priveleges). If you install using the official .exe installer it works fine, but that's not a great option for 300+ workstations.

[matt40k]

@AngryTechnician
Make a blank MSI that installs it then.

[mac_shinobi]

@AngryTechnician
Make a blank MSI that installs it then.

being noob with MSI's in terms of creating them and not having used vista - how would you create a blank one to include it changing the correct COM registrations as well as ensuring it runs with elevated permissions to allow them to run correctly in relation to truecrypt ?

[matt40k]

a "blank" msi will run the .exe. As it's deployed via AD it should have all the correct rights to run. It SHOULD work.

[AngryTechnician]

I refuse to use MSIs as a wrapper because it's dirty and wrong.

It also seems to malfunction a lot. Adobe use the same method for the MSIs for Flash Player and that deployment goes wrong more than every other deployment on our system combined.

[matt40k]

Would argue that. Still, I've only just started using it, I prefer SMS. Could you provide any more details?

[AngryTechnician]

It may just be the way Adobe have done it, but we frequently come across machines where the MSI has deployed but Flash simply doesn't work because the wrapped .exe has thrown an error that Windows Installer can't detect, so never reports.

Secondly, we've been seeing a lot of errors such as "Error 2753. The File 'FP_AX_MSI_INSTALLER.exe' is not marked for installation." both when deploying and then subsequently attempting to remove the deployment. We've had to use Windows Installer Cleanup Tool to remove these, and that makes AngryTechnician cry.

Thirdly, with any wrapper MSI, you have to be very careful in ensuring the wrapped .exe will never EVER display a UI when called via it's custom action. I've had problems with Flash (back in the v8 days) and Java Runtime (very recently) where they have popped up modal dialogue boxes during the deployment - which of course are in session 0 and the user cannot interact with them, so the managed software install simply hangs until you remotely kill whatever process is holding it up.

All in all I've had more bad experiences with products installed this way than good ones, so I'm very loathe to go down that route myself.

[matt40k]

Yer, only work with good documentation and a well written msi.

I remember, Adobe (CS3) is a bit of an arse to do

Main problem I had was when you have to deploy stuff during the day and they would plug the network cable mid way though (that's SMS stuff).

Out of interest, have you figured out away to turn off auto updates (and deploying them manually)?

EDIT:
Adobe Reader: MSI - easy - requires registration with Adobe
Adobe Flash : MSI - easy - requires registration with Adobe
Adobe Shockwave - easy - switch /s off hand.

[AngryTechnician]

Adobe Reader: MSI - easy - requires registration with Adobe
Adobe Flash : MSI - easy - requires registration with Adobe
Adobe Shockwave - easy - switch /s off hand.

Oh I use those - they are the ones that go wrong! Adobe Reader isn't even a wrapper, it's a native MSI, but it still uses shonky custom actions that go wrong, resulting in about 5% of our machines throwing "Internal Error 2753.Updater.api_NON_OPT" every time we roll out as new version of Reader and requiring a manual reinstall.

Not that I'm bitter about Adobe not being able to write working installers...

As for disabling auto-updates, I used this method and deployed the file they describe using Group Policy Preferences

[AngryTechnician]

Also, apologies to FM-GM for going horribly off-topic!

[FN-GM]

its ok lol