Partner Installation via Windows Active Directory

Nutshell and Caveats

This documentation describes how to create an MSI installer for the Partner System. It is somewhat dated and is not officially supported by Partner. We are working on standardizing this support. However, the documentation may be of use and is presented herein.

It was originally designed for customers with an Active Directory Domain and who do not allow turning off UAC on Windows Vista and Windows 7 machines.

Be aware that:

  • using an initial installation to create an MSI file will capture the maps and other information at the time of creation only, and
  • the MSI process may not exactly mirror the standard Partner Update process for all machines.

Use at your own risk!

Creating a Partner installation .msi

System 1: Reference System

The reference system should be a virtual machine set up and a screen-shot taken with Windows, Windows Updates and Java.

System 2: WinInstall LE System

The WinInstall LE System should have WinInstall LE installed on a share and this application can be downloaded from here:

http://www.scalable.com/softwaredownload/download-wininstall-le

System 3: Partner Hub System

The Partner Hub installation of your organization.

Running WinInstal LE

  1. From the reference machine open the WinInstall share on the WinInstall System and run discover.exe to take the “before” snapshot.
  2. Install Partner from the Partner Hub System
  3. Run discover.exe again to take the “after” snapshot

Editing the .msi package

  1. From the WinInstall LE System navigate to the WinInstall installation folder

    [WinInstall]PackagesYourPackage folder and delete the “Documents and Settings” folder

  2. From the WinInstall LE System run WICONSOLE to edit the package

  3. Select the package created

  1. General Tab:
  1. Select Install only per user (if you select per machine you will see duplicate Partner icons after an update)
  1. Shortcuts Tab:
  1. Remove redundant shortcuts: Workbench, Update Viewer, Partner, Edit Viewer Settings so that you are left with only two shortcuts: Partner, Edit Viewer Settings
  2. Select each shortcut and by selecting the Edit icon top middle icon and the Icon tab give the shortcuts your two shortcut icons from [Partner]oswindowsinstallpartner.ico
  1. Save the package
  2. Right click on the package and select “compress”
  3. This .msi package is ready to be deployed to the client machines of the organization’s domain via Group Policy Objects or any other software installation applications the organization may be using.