Chapter 14: Microsoft Systems Management Server Installer

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Overview

As we saw in Chapter 12, “Package Distribution and Management,” SMS 2003’s package distribution function is primarily a delivery tool. It’s ultimately the SMS administrator’s responsibility to create the package, including all scripts and information files, and to test the veracity of the package. Thus the ability to create scripts and somehow bundle the package to ease the installation becomes an integral part of the package distribution process for many organizations and administrators.

For software applications that need to be installed on client computers, the most sought-after characteristic of the script is that it be fully unattended—in other words, you don’t want the user to have any interaction with the installation process. This separation ensures a standard installation and minimizes questions and confusion on the part of the user. SMS 2003, of course, doesn’t offer this kind of functionality natively. Installation isn’t the responsibility of the SMS package distribution process. Remember our package delivery example in Chapter 12. Package delivery services such as Federal Express and United Parcel Service are entrusted with getting your package to its destination, but not with the assembly of its contents—the same holds true for SMS. It’s your responsibility to ensure that the package includes everything needed to run successfully on a target computer. SMS just sees that the package gets there and runs.

Fortunately, several third-party applications are available whose main function is to create packages. The Sysdiff utility, one the many utilities included in the Windows 2000 Server Resource Kit for example, essentially takes before and after snapshots of a system in order to bundle application installation with operating system installation. Microsoft provides a package scripting utility for SMS called SMS Installer. The current version of SMS Installer includes the Windows Installer Step-up Utility (ISU). This command-line utility lets you convert setup packages created with SMS Installer to the Windows Installer format.

In this chapter we’ll look first at SMS Installer and its initial installation; then we’ll explore the software repackaging process. Next, we’ll focus on modifying installation scripts using the Installation Expert and Script Editor. Finally, we’ll explore rolling back and uninstalling a scripted installation and look at some of the updates to SMS Installer.

More Info 

The SMS Installer Help is an excellent source of additional information about how to use the application and how to interpret and fill in the various dialog boxes. Another good source of information is Chapter 7 in the Microsoft Systems Management Server 2003 Operations Guide, available through Microsoft TechNet and the SMS Web site (http://www.microsoft.com/ smserver). Finally, I highly recommend the book Microsoft SMS Installer (McGraw-Hill Osborne Media, 2004), written by Rod Trent (who also manages the MYITForum Web site, http://www.myitforum.com, an excellent source of peer support for SMS administrators).

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