[THIN] Re: One of the Apps running on Citrix has no install program
- From: "Evan Mann" <emann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 18:17:36 -0500
My in-house programmers create a slew of custom apps. They used to
write installers but I hated them. They didn't modify the registry, but
they tried to install files that I knew where already in the OS. I was
sworn to that if a DLL/OCX already existed they skipped to the next file
(never overwriting an existing file), but I personally felt that, in
some instances, they were overwriting files.
So, to deal with that, I had them write me a batch script that copied
DLL/OCX's to \system32 and registered them, say N to all overwrites. I
run that on my workstations and servers, and ANY custom app they write
now works. If they happen to get a new DLL/OCX they start coding with,
they tell me and I manually do it (rare that they add new controls to
their coding)
It works well doing it this, and I don't have to muck with installers
that don't always work, which meant I was frequently registering
DLL/OCX's on different machines to make new apps work.
________________________________
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Tim Mangan
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 5:22 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: One of the Apps running on Citrix has no install
program
It sounds like you are just making work for yourself, possibly without
bennefit. If the application install does not touch the registry, or
the logged in user's "application and settings" area (for example for
making shortcuts), then it makes no difference if you are in "install
mode" or not.
A simple msi could just run a cmd script to do the install. This is all
you would need, although a second cmd script to do an uninstall would be
nice. Of course, even an MSI with just those two things will now cause
a whole bunch of stuff to be written to the registry when you install.
Is it really needed?
tim
________________________________
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of Steve Parr
Sent: Thursday, January 05, 2006 3:04 PM
To: 'thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx'
Subject: [THIN] One of the Apps running on Citrix has no install program
The vendor is lazy and thinks it is not required. They give our Apps
group the program files and they have been copying to workstations and
just running that way. Before letting this run on Citrix would like to
take a crack at creating an install for this
for the purpose of being able to install in change user /install mode so
things get a proper chance to be set up in the mutiuser environment that
Citrix\TS is. What things should I look for to know that the install
program will do what it ideally should for TS\Citrix? I have used an
installer program put out by Caphypon called Advanced Installer. Have
run this and created an .msi package that comes out to about 600 mbs -
the program files prior to being compressed into CAB files is at 1.2
Gbs. Seems to work but not tested under load yet. According to the
vendor there are up to 400 .exe's and many other supporting files and is
reason program files so large in size. This amazes me a bit as the
architecture on the back end is MS SQL so I do not see the need to be so
fat on the client but maybe I just have not been around long enough. Any
thoughts would be appreciated.
Steve Parr
Metroland Printing, Publishing and Distributing Ltd.
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