RE: Deploying Hotfixes, SPs and other Software

From: Michael Lamb (Volt) (a-mlamb@microsoft.com)
Date: 11/29/01 

Subject: RE: Deploying Hotfixes, SPs and other Software
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2001 08:24:36 -0800
Message-ID: <07F8CE8F0CAC2444869B3557D1666A7B03411DB2@red-msg-03.redmond.corp.microsoft.com>
From: "Michael Lamb (Volt)" <a-mlamb@microsoft.com>
To: <Thor@HammerofGod.com>, <focus-ms@securityfocus.com>

Check out the MSDN SDK documentation. There is a lot of helpful
information about how to create MSI files.

As to the original question of why Microsoft doesn't release hotfixes,
etc in MSI files... I've heard it is because there wasn't the ability to
do code signing in early versions of the installer.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msi/wip
ort_6gf9.asp

Michael Lamb
Operations Engineer

-----Original Message-----
From: Thor@HammerofGod.com [mailto:Thor@HammerofGod.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2001 6:38 AM
To: focus-ms@securityfocus.com
Subject: RE: Deploying Hotfixes, SPs and other Software

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At 12:36 PM 11/28/2001 -0500, Pete Jacob wrote:

>look in the resource kit...
>
>there are MS utilitys to create .MSI packages out of anything... even
>non MS packages...

Could you be a bit more specific? I have looked all through the
resource
kit and can't find any .msi package creation tools. Veritas has WinLite

(or something) software that ships with Windows to create .msi files-
but
then, you are to start with a 'clean' PC, take Discovery snapshots and
build the .msi files like that- a *royal* PITA. I have messaged around
with it a bit, and tried other methods of building packages, but it
seems
that you have to buy the full version for any real functionality.

I too think that hotfixes, SP's, and other install packages not being in

MSI format is uncool. Why should I have to run SMS to distribute
software
when Group Policy allows me to do it so easily (and without additional
cost, administration, and security concerns).

Is anyone else actually *doing* this and happy with a method of easily
creating .msi packages from .exe setup files?

Thanks
AD

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Relevant Pages

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