Application Chaining - Reducing Complex Environments

I'm converting a very large application snapshot environment to an MSI 
base for future versions of Zen.  In the process we are making a lot of 
use of MSI scripts with chaining.  A common example are MSI packages 
already packaged with InstallShield and that require a specific version 
of InstallShield.  Currently every application is chained to the version 
of InstallShield needed (7,8,9,10,10.5, or 11).  This works great expect 
there isn't a test to see if that InstallShield application object even 
needs to run.  This is best illustrated with an example.

If I install GroupWise 7.01 I need InstallShield 10.5 installed so I 
simply chain it to the GroupWise object and InstallShield 10.5 is now 
available on that machine.  If I install say Adobe C3 (fake example) 
that requires InstallShield 10.5 next I can't assume the machine will 
have 10.5 therefore I chain it.  NAL will run the 10.5 application 
object in the chain again when it does need to since it was installed 
previously.

Is there a better way to manage this process so that I don't have
"base" 
packages being re-installed all of the time or even processed (I'm 
assuming the InstallShield MSIs will check for Not Installed) if they 
are already available?  I want to allow the client to dynamically grab 
the InstallShield it needs if it's not installed but not force it on 
every computer wasting time and network bandwidth.  I am already 
prepared in this case to force install all versions of InstallShield to 
all machines but we avoid this in our environment of 30K plus machines.

Thanks in advance for you advice,

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 14:32:45 GMT, Aaron White wrote:

> If I install GroupWise 7.01 I need InstallShield 10.5 installed so I 
> simply chain it to the GroupWise object and InstallShield 10.5 is now 
> available on that machine.

via the application dependency in the nal object?
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Marcus Breiden

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Marcus Breiden wrote:
> On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 14:32:45 GMT, Aaron White wrote:
> 
>> If I install GroupWise 7.01 I need InstallShield 10.5 installed so I 
>> simply chain it to the GroupWise object and InstallShield 10.5 is now 
>> available on that machine.
> 
> via the application dependency in the nal object?

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:05:11 GMT, Aaron White wrote:

> In all cases we currently use Application Dependency (chaining).

nal should notice that the installshield 10.5 nalapp was already installed
and not install it again for a second time.. you might see some progress
bars but it should not really install it..


-- 


Marcus Breiden

If you are asked to email me information please change -- to - in my e-mail
address.
The content of this mail is my private and personal opinion.