Altiris Juice - A Community for Altiris Product Enthusiasts

How Does Vista's UAC Feature Affect Applications?

Yukon — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:28:32 -0500

When an administrator user logs on to a Windows Vista computer, two access tokens are created: a filtered standard user access token, and a full administrator access token. Instead of launching the desktop (Explorer.exe) with the administrator's access token, the standard user access token is used. All child processes inherit from this initial launch of the desktop (the explorer.exe process), which helps limit Windows Vista's attack surface. By default, all users, including administrators, log on to a Windows Vista computer as standard users.

Application Packaging

Playing with Extensions (How ?)

maratha — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 10:06:50 -0500

What it is a file extension?

A file extension tells the computer and user what kind of information is stored within a file.

Application Packaging

Creating a Layer of Adobe Reader 9

trb48 — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 10:10:55 -0500

Adobe Reader is one of those programs that make up a basic desktop. One problem with throwing Adobe Reader into a layer is that it likes to automatically update itself. That is fine until you reset the layer for any reason, then you are back to square one. There are some ways to deal with that, but the simplest way is to turn automatic updates off in Adobe Reader.

Adobe has released the "Acrobat Customization Wizard 9". This program allows you to tweak the basic settings of Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat. Adobe has made turning off automatic updates (and many other settings) a breeze to build into the install. This article will talk about how to create a Adobe Reader 9 layer that works well with layers.

Application Packaging

Custom Actions: Basics and Directions

Yukon — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:32:52 -0500

Custom actions play an very prominent role in getting the Developer's task done easily. The Microsoft Windows Installer provides many built-in custom actions for performing the installation process. The standard actions can also be defined as a part of the packaging template. Standard actions are sufficient to execute an installation in most cases. However, there are situations where the developer of an installation package finds it necessary to write a custom action. The Custom Actions are the actions entirely defined by the users i.e. the developer writes an action to execute his own installation. This is basically written to achieve few tasks which are not possible through the MSI.

Application Packaging

Playing with Launch Conditions

ademeijer — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:01:52 -0500

Ever wanted to install a feature based on information present in the registry of the target computer. In this article you will find a step by step procedure of creating a launch condition based on a value in the registry. The article makes use of the APPSEARCH standard action and proerties.

Application Packaging

A Brief Note on Installer GUIDs

Yukon — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 15:16:59 -0500

The Installer uses GUIDs to uniquely identify applications, packages, features, etc. The ProductID is the GUID used by the Installer to distinguish one application from another.

It doesn’t matter if the package or application names for two different applications are different, if the IDs are the same, the Installer is likely to become confused and you will encounter problems with installation, repair and uninstall.

Application Packaging

Scripted OS Install - Part 7: Installing Software

trb48 — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:08:16 -0500

It has been a while, but it is time to finish this series off. All of us have had to install Windows at some point. Most companies have stuck with XP, so we have had lots of practice getting it installed. I have installed XP on all kinds of different computers, and frankly I decided that I was sick of it. I determined that if I had to enter our XP serial number in one more time I might just switch my users to Linux. Luckily I found a solution that literally installs Windows for me.

Application Packaging

Internet Explorer 7 Packaging Issue Solved

eshwar — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:57:56 -0500

Using Internet Explorer 7 Administration Kit (IEAK 7)for packaging Internet Explorer 7, you can also include latest IE7 hotfixes inside the package. The hotfixes will be installed after you reboot the machine.

Application Packaging

SVS Pro: Putting the Pro into Our Management (Intro)

trb48 — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 10:30:44 -0500

Early this year I convinced my boss that I really needed to go to ManageFusion in Vegas. I made sure to build a very good case. I explained that we needed to learn more about Helpdesk Solution, Patch Management, Application Metering, Dell Client Manager, and more. I argued that if I were to learn more about these products I would be able to be more effective at work. Lucky for me, I was able to attend the confab. It honestly changed the way I manage computers.

Application Packaging

Creating Installations for Device Driver Applications Using DPInst

Yukon — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 11:20:20 -0500

When a Driver application gets installed on to a machine, it installs driver information like PNF, INF, CAT files in the location "C:\Windows\inf". By default, these files will be named as oemXX.pnf or oemXX.inf where XX stands for the number. Ex: oem1.INF, oem1.PNF and so on. So when we do a capture of such applications, these XX values will be hard coded which does affect many other device driver applications which are pre-existent in the machine. Hence, in this case we used to customize the package by writing few Custom actions using "setupapi.dll" in such a way that it checks for the max XX value which is present in the machine and install the PNF or INF file of the package.

Application Packaging