Software bodgery

[gshaw]

Amazing really, we have all these wonderful management systems, new OSes, virtualisation yet still we have to spend too much time messing around bodging apps to work smoothly

 

So far in the last few days...

 

- Intel drivers turning off WOL... ended up re-enabling it manually

- Adobe CS4 silent install that doesn't conform to normal methods and doesn't even work properly... ended up installing it on 16 machines manually

- Studio 8, getting the MSI easy enough but I remember last year it failed if it couldn't create Start Menu shortcuts (gonna fail with redirected menus then!) so ended up installing via some batch files and NetSupport then memorised the serial number

 

Madness that even with MSIs we still have to mess with install tables and the like... in the end for small deployments the manual method becomes quicker... if only I had time to mess around with App-V maybe that's the answer or just another layer on the cake...

[AngryTechnician]

App-V isn't a panacea, but if you're thinking about having a play with it, your best friend is the Microsoft Application Virtualization Version 4.5 Trial Guide. It's a step-by-step walkthrough of setting up a simple, one-server App-V implementation.

 

For something that can be quite complex it makes it very simple to get a working install up and running quickly that you can then poke around with to learn more. I really wish Microsoft would write more of them for some of their more complex products (SCCM, I'm looking at you!).

[maniac]

- Adobe CS4 silent install that doesn't conform to normal methods and doesn't even work properly... ended up installing it on 16 machines manually

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one that was quite astounded the CS4 silent install was so strangely packaged, and only appeared to like running manually. Luckily I had this setup in time to include it on my build, so it got put onto the machines as part of the imaging process. Just as well really, as we've brought a site license for it (well 500 workstations anyway) although we're only running it on about 120 of our better machines at the moment.

 

Mike.