Help with repackager

[CChong]

I am a brand new user of installshield adminstudio and I have a few questions. First, my goal is to use Installshield to make 'Department' packages to install on top of my basic images. A simple scenario would be taking a standard image and then applying the 'accounting' app package which installs several applications in one swoop, therefore eliminating the need for me to maintain departmental images for each of my platforms. My question is, can I use the repackager tool to repackage several apps, involving several reboots and even applications which are already MSI files? If not, what is the best way to attain this goal. I have gone over all of the documentation and I purchased the training materials and I still do not quite understand repackaging. Should I be able to just record the system status, install 10 applications, record the changes, and build a package from that? I have tried this and it does ot seem to work. Any help or links to more information would be greatly appreciated.

[CChong]

Dream on ! The repackager is an unstable tool and most of the application on the market right now are too complexed to be repackaged. And, if you read the documentation, you should know that you can't repackage a MSI.

If you plan to do everything with the repackager, you have choose the wrong product.

[Pfeiffer]

Hmmm... Well I don't know about that.
How are you planning on triggering the install of this "Departmental Package"? Login Script, SMS, ZenWorks, Sneaker-Net ???

If your triggering mechinism can handle it you might want to compile a series of events to occur instead of a single package. That way you are only repackaging your shared applications once (ie Acrobat Reader, etc...) and don't need to completely rebuild your project everytime an app upgrade comes up.

Shoot a couple more details into you post, and will let you know how I handled this same issue when it came up at my company.

[CChong]

I have several differnet departments each have a set of about 10 apps which I need to install on top of our company's basic image. Maybe I should repackage apps individually, and take MSI files and apply transforms to them with settings (can I do that?) then write a batch file for each department to run those packages one right after the other. Is that what you had in mind?

[Pfeiffer]

Exactly.
I would recommend this kind of structure. I don't know what you are using to deploy apps so I will assume some sort of login script, but you'll get the gist.

Image System
Base Image - I assume you bundle a couple of apps in it.

Base Login Script
Base Apps - Standard Company Apps, If you need to cusomize these per department, don't do it at this point. Fully compressed MSI work best in this scenaorio. Plus you can add them to your image later and save some network space.

Department Login Script
Launch customizations to your base apps per department. Setting, configs, whatever.
Launch Multi-Departmental Apps. Apps that only a department or two might use.
Launch Departmental Apps

This kind of layout work because it is easy to manage and your AdminStudio Projects stay relativily small.

Hope this helps,
Hang in there new user or not it doesn't get any easier, later you'll just have more options to play with. : )