Best Way to Test a Package in a Locked-Down Environment

Filed under: Wise Package Studio Installation, Best Practices, Testing, Packaging

Submitted by PRASANNA KUMAR RAJA on 18 April, 2008 - 13:19.

Per machine advertisement followed by installation by a normal user account is the most comprehensive test for this situation. As an administrator use the following command line to advertise the application to the local machine.

Msiexec.exe /jm package.msi ALLUSERS=1 /qb

Then...

Logon with a normal user account and trigger the installation process by running the shortcut or via a file type association. The application should start and run the with no problems at this point.

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I can't believe we haven't

Submitted by George Wagner on 18 April, 2008 - 14:41.

I can't believe we haven't been using the /jm swith all this time... we've had msi deployments not go very well due to this issue. I can't thank you enough for bringing this out!

Deployment Scenario and its significance in testing the MSIs

Submitted by R-Vijay on 19 April, 2008 - 06:54.

its a good tip. However, I don't consider this to be a genaralized one. It always depends on the scenario with which the application gets deployed.

For eg: If we have application which is deployed using intelli mirror(AD), then the application needs to tested with /ju switch. If we follow /jm here, the application may goto heal for every user when he launches it.(if the HKCU keys are set as a key-path).

If the application undergoes a SMS deployment., then this practice of testing is worth. But still, we will not be able to simulate the exact deployment mechanism.

Hence, its always adviced to test the package based on the deployment scenario.

Cheers'
Vijay

An ok tip to know about if

Submitted by deploy.no on 20 April, 2008 - 03:24.

An ok tip to know about if you are just coming to this scenario ..

However, the most important (and most overlooked) fact of packaging for locked-down/limited user accounts is to always do a full and exact profiling of what ACLs your application needs to fully work as intended. To do this properly you would need to do full user testing.

You say "The application should start and run with no problems at this point.", my emphasis.

This is where less-experienced packagers often fail. Don't make this mistake!