Reviews
Briefing: WinINSTALL 8
- By Mike Gunderloy
- March 19, 2004
WinINSTALL 8
$15-18 per managed machine for WinINSTALL 8 or $2500 for
WinINSTALL MSI Packager Professional
OnDemand Software, Inc.
Bonita Springs, Florida
(239) 495-0541
www.wininstall.com
I had a chance to talk with the OnDemand folks about WinINSTALL version
8, which came out around the first of the year. There are actually two
products to mention here. THe main product, WinINSTALL 8, is designed to
be a complete solution for administrators who need to distribute
software around a network. It handles a whole mess of different
functions, including repackaging legacy software to the MSI (Windows
Installer) format, conflict assessment, patch management, network
hardware and software inventory, and other administrative tasks. Version
8 is a major upgrade that includes, among other changes:
- A new database-backed architecture that runs on either SQL Server or
Oracle
- A service-based agent technology that delivers, among other things,
hardware and software inventory down to the file level
- Deep integration into Active Directory (so, for example, you can
easily deploy a package to every machine in an OU)
- Vulnerability assessment and patch management
The other product here may be of more interest to developers. WinINSTALL
MSI Packager Professional is a new version of WinINSTALL that takes the
MSI-creation parts and breaks them out as a product for the developer
who wants to deliver a product as a Windows Installer setup. In addition
to the features you might expect (like an automatic, point & click, fast
way to build packages), Packager Professional distinguishes itself by
conflic assessment. OnDemand is hoping that this makes it a superior
development choice for corporate environments. The idea is that you can
have a database of what's already installed on your corporate desktops,
and immediately see when a new install is going to overwrite a file or
munch a Registry key.
Packager Professional also includes patch creation and MSI validation
functions, and is included in the full WinINSTALL system. I should be
bringing you a more hands-on review in a future issue of Developer
Central. Meanwhile, there's an evaluation download at OnDemand's Web
site.
About the Author
Mike Gunderloy has been developing software for a quarter-century now, and writing about it for nearly as long. He walked away from a .NET development career in 2006 and has been a happy Rails user ever since. Mike blogs at A Fresh Cup.