I would want to make a setup which allows to install a remote MSI package.
The trade platform that i use does not allow to download too heavy files - my MSI package is too heavy.
So i am obliged to use a "light" setup which is capable of downloading and of executing my remote MSI package.
For information my MSI package is generated from ANT file with WIX technology.
Any ideas on the way of taking itself there to make this setup ?
Thanks you in advance.
The best answer that I can give depends on some assumptions:
That you can install an agent on the client systems.
That the client is permanently connected to the internet and can get to the remote MSI file, and the same applies if it's an intra-company network situation.
If you can't download the MSI (and "push" installs don't work anyway) then get an agent program onto each client system somehow, which installs the MSI file using your HTTP:// web site as the location of the MSI file, the equivalent of msiexec /i http://server/share/package.msi
This is effectively what group policy and so on do in corporate networks, the MSI being on a share rather than an internet location.
The other alternative if you can download MSI files with your own code is again to have an agent program on the client machine that explicitly downloads the MSI to a permanent location (NOT temp internet files location) and simply installs it with MsiInstallProduct or equivalent, and "how to download a file" is an internet question rather than a Windows Installer question.
Related
I am very new with electron application. I need some help with election installation.
I have an Electron desktop application and a windows service.
I can start and stop my pre installed services by using sudo-prompt package.
I am creating windows installer by using electron-winstaller package.
But I want to bundle my windows service along with my electron application. My requirement is when I install my electron package then it should install my service also, when I uninstall my package then that service should be uninstalled.
Please help me out. Any clue, Any suggestions will be appreciated.
If you think this should be achieved with something else then please do suggest me.
Electron's windows installer packager strikes me a specific case tool that would likely hit limitations in scenarios like this. I would use a general case tool instead such as the Free and Open Source Windows Installer XML Toolset aka WiX. I would also use with that another FOSS application called Industrial Strength Windows Installer XML aka IsWiX.
WiX allows you to describe and build MSI databases using an XML/XSD domain specific language. It supports MSBuild for easy integration with your CI/CD pipeline. IsWiX* is a set of project templates and graphical designers that provide an opinionated project structuring (scaffolding) and greatly speeds up the learning curve and implementation. For example, this installer you describe could be done without writing a single line of XML.
For more information see: https://github.com/iswix-llc/iswix-tutorials
The desktop-application and windows-service tutorials should** show you everything you need to know to author this installer. Basically follow the desktop-application all the way through and then skip to the final portion of the windows-service tutorial where you define the windows service.
I'm the maintainer of IsWiX
** This assumes your service exe is a proper Windows service that interfaces with the windows service control manager. If it's really just a console app that runs as a service you will need to include a program such as srvany.exe. This will require one line of hand crafted XML to extended the service definition in the registry with the proper command line value to be passed to your exe. An example can be found here: Wix installer to replace INSTSRV and SRVANY for user defined service installation
I have Subversion setup on a Windows machine for iOS development. The WIndows machine acts as the server and all the team members are working on Macs.
I use TortoiseSVN as the SVN client and I know you can lock files using that but you have to have access to the directory in the server to do that all the time. Therefore I'm looking for a way to do it remotely.
To explain further, when a team member starts editing a file, he should be able to issue a command through the terminal (I read that you cannot do this through Xcode though a feature like that would have been great!) to lock the file and again unlock it the same way.
How can I do this?
Thanks
svn lock <filename> on a file kept in a working copy is the equivalent of Tortoise's "Get Lock"
I want to scan the files that are uploaded to my Azure blob. It looks like ClamAV (www.clamav.net) is probably the way to go. I see instructions on how to install on a Windows server, but what would my procedure be for a site hosted on Azure? I am using ASP.NET MVC.
Disclaimer: I haven't used ClamAV. Having said that...
You should be able to install it during a startup task (with elevated privileges). I looked at the ClamAV wiki, and it appears that the msi has a silent-install:
msiexec /i clamAV.msi /qr
You'll need to change that last parameter to /qn to force "no user interface."
The challenge will be scanning blobs. You'll need to copy files from their blobs to a local directory in your VM instance, and then run clamdscan on that file (basing off the wiki).
I haven't tried this, but the basic premise should hold up: Install anything requiring an MSI as a startup task (probably needs elevated mode).
I searched a lot, but all are guessed answers. Help me to find the exact answer.
An MSI is a Windows Installer database. Windows Installer (a service installed with Windows) uses this to install software on your system (i.e. copy files, set registry values, etc...).
A setup.exe may either be a bootstrapper or a non-msi installer. A non-msi installer will extract the installation resources from itself and manage their installation directly. A bootstrapper will contain an MSI instead of individual files. In this case, the setup.exe will call Windows Installer to install the MSI.
Some reasons you might want to use a setup.exe:
Windows Installer only allows one MSI to be installing at a time. This means that it is difficult to have an MSI install other MSIs (e.g. dependencies like the .NET framework or C++ runtime). Since a setup.exe is not an MSI, it can be used to install several MSIs in sequence.
You might want more precise control over how the installation is managed. An MSI has very specific rules about how it manages the installations, including installing, upgrading, and uninstalling. A setup.exe gives complete control over the software configuration process. This should only be done if you really need the extra control since it is a lot of work, and it can be tricky to get it right.
.msi files are windows installer files without the windows installer runtime, setup.exe can be any executable programm (probably one that installs stuff on your computer)
MSI is an installer file which installs your program on the executing system.
Setup.exe is an application (executable file) which has msi file(s) as its one of the resources.
Executing Setup.exe will in turn execute msi (the installer) which writes your application to the system.
Edit (as suggested in comment): Setup executable files don't necessarily have an MSI resource internally
MSI is basically an installer from Microsoft that is built into windows. It associates components with features and contains installation control information. It is not necessary that this file contains actual user required files i.e the application programs which user expects. MSI can contain another setup.exe inside it which the MSI wraps, which actually contains the user required files.
Hope this clears you doubt.
I am reading about how you can create an .exe that will install a windows service to the server.
Say I already have the windows service installed and I want to perform an update. Is there a way for the installer to uninstall (stop the service, delete it, uninstall it) the currently running service and then install the updated version?
Don't be that drastic -- if possible, just stop the service, replace the files you need to, and then (optionally) restart the service.
If you delete the service from the SCM, you lose any post-install configuration done by the user -- custom logon credentials, the settings that dictate what to do when the service crashes, etc.
You shouldn't need to create an exe to do this, the "sc" command can uninstall, update, and install services on Windows for you. See:
Using SC.EXE to Develop Windows NT Services
How to create a Windows service by using Sc.exe
If you still really want to do this by creating your own executable you certainly can, if you can let us know what language you're working in code samples can be provided.