SMS Installer

MICROSOFT SYSTEMS MANAGEMENT SERVER (SMS) Installer helps systems administrators automate application distribution. You can use this SMS program to consistently and efficiently deploy software packages to your users without having to install the software on each computer manually. (For information about SMS, see "Related Articles in Windows NT Magazine," page 62.)

SMS Installer works the same way NT's Sysdiff works. First, SMS Installer takes a snapshot of the system. Then, it installs the software. Finally, it takes another snapshot and searches for differences between the two snapshots' directories and Registries. In SMS Installer's Installation Expert mode, SMS Installer compiles the differences into an executable (.exe) file, and you build an SMS job that applies the file to target systems. The Installation Expert mode is a graphical interface that lets you set up the package via a series of dialog boxes. SMS Installer's other mode is the Script Editor, which lets you build complete scripts or edit the scripts that SMS Installer builds. You must learn a new scripting language and spend time writing, testing, and debugging scripts to use this mode. Therefore, I don't recommend the Script Editor for everyday use. In situations in which SMS Installer isn't powerful enough, you need to purchase a third-party product such as Seagate Software's WinINSTALL 6.0. (For information about WinINSTALL, see Stephen Garwood's sidebar "WinINSTALL 6.0," page 60.) However, SMS Installer comes free with SMS, and the tool will probably suffice for your application-distribution needs.

Benefits
SMS distributes software packages to client computers, but users must install the software themselves. (Some applications, such as Microsoft Office and Microsoft Outlook, have silent installation options or let you create silent installation routines. You'll want to use these options if they're available.) Letting users install software creates problems if users lack the experience necessary to perform the installation correctly or if you want all users to configure their software the same way. For example, users who install Microsoft Excel might not choose essential spreadsheet conversion options. Then, when they receive a Lotus 1-2-3 file that their Excel configuration can't convert, they call the Help desk for information about converting the file.

SMS Installer prevents this kind of problem. The systems administrator goes through the software's installation and selects all the options the administrator wants user configurations to include. Then, users receive a duplicate of the software configuration the systems administrator installed. Users don't take part in the installation process and thus can't make installation errors. (For an SMS Installer case study, see Christa Anderson, "NT Innovators 1999," January 1999.)

Another benefit of SMS Installer is that the program lets you easily and consistently distribute software to many users in a large organization. Moreover, you can distribute several software packages concurrently. You can take a system snapshot, run several installation programs, and take the second snapshot. SMS Installer then applies all your changes at one time.

Installation
Microsoft released SMS Installer as an add-on to SMS 1.2. You can download SMS Installer for SMS 1.2 at http://backoffice.microsoft.com/backoffice/downtrial/moreinfo/smsinst.asp. The download file prevents you from using SMS Installer without SMS; the self-extracting .exe file extracts only on SMS Site Servers. If you have a copy of the SMS 1.2 CD-ROM but not a fully installed Site Server, the file won't extract. After the file extracts, you can install SMS Installer on your reference systems.

SMS 2.0 beta 2 includes a slightly updated version of SMS Installer. (For information about these updates, see the sidebar "SMS Installer Updates for SMS 2.0.") SMS Installer for SMS 2.0 is on the SMS 2.0 beta 2 CD-ROM, in the \SMSSetup\SMS_Inst\platformdir directory, where platformdir is i386 or ALPHA. When you select the SMS Installer setup option, the program replicates to a directory under the SMS directory on your Site Server. (The directory on my SMS computer is D:\SMS\SMS_Inst\I386.)

You typically set up SMS Installer on one or more reference systems that closely resemble your target clients' OS and hardware configuration. SMS Installer can generate an .exe file that you can use to install the software on NT, Windows 98, or Win95 systems. However, I recommend using a reference system with the same OS as your target computers, even if you need to repeat the process for each OS. SMS Installer can also determine the directory your OS is in. Thus, the program works even if your reference computer uses \Winnt but some of your target computers use \Winnt4 and others use \Winntsrv.

SMS Installer's installation process doesn't offer many choices, but you must specify whether to install the 16- or 32-bit program support (or both). The 16-bit version works on NT, Win98, Win95, and Windows 3.1. The 32-bit version works on NT, Win98, and Win95. Either program can generate installation files that work on 16- and 32-bit platforms. If you choose both options, the setup program puts an icon for each option in your Program Files folder.

To prevent problems, you need to use reference systems that don't have other applications installed. Suppose you've already installed Excel on a system, and you use SMS Installer to install Microsoft Word. The system's hard disk contains certain .dlls that SMS Installer doesn't show as part of the Word installation. If you install Word on a clean reference system, SMS Installer adds the .dlls during the installation process and lists them as a change.

Don't uninstall software to return the reference system to its original state. Uninstallation programs typically leave remnants of the software in place—especially .dlls that other applications might be using. Instead, use a program such as Drive Image or Norton Ghost to restore a clean copy of the reference system. You might want to store this copy on a separate partition of your reference system to speed up restores.