Re: [wpkg-users] wpkg for crapware removal?
So usually for me it takes longer to clean the machines (and still living with the risk that manufacturer changed some Windows settings which I don't know about) than re-installing them from scratch; knowing to have a clean system then. Using unattended Windows setup and WPKG a machine can be automatically deployed within less than 1 hour usually. For our (small and diverse) deployment I didn't bother about unattended installs (or images). We just buy the machines without the crapware. WPKG then removes in a first step (as execute=once) the few packages that are not necessarily crapware, but unwanted (java-plugin) - and as execute-once because it might be needed later (and reinstalled/updated anyway). Cleaning a crapware-system usually takes me longer manual actions and creating/maintaining a very-detailed crapware-remover tool would require me to adapt it continuously. Right - but there are tools for that readily available - I just don't know if those are automatable. A quick web search brought this example: http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/ Jon actually had slightly different requirement. He's willing to blacklist some known crapware and assure it's removed automatically whenever it's installed on the client (after deployment). At least this was my understanding. So here an execute=always package might help. The package will have to identify every kind of undesired software and remove it silently on every WPKG run. I'd suggest using a normal package and using uninstall checks with a logical not - so the package commands only fire if the crap is there and will re-fire everytime the crap reappears. Best Regards Heiko - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Architecture being ignored when installing
Strangely, if I run wpkg.js in a terminal window with /debug, it tries to run the proper file (but fails due to the software variable not being set). But then when I try the service it again goes back to trying to install the 32 bit version. This sounds like you're running the 32bit service on the 64bit platform. Could you check that? Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Log Files
..., because there is always something missing from the log on the server, if it is done by a package. It is best to do it after WPKG.js is called, which can be accomplished by a post action in WPKG client or a line in the batch file executing WPKG.js I've done this inside of WPKG - the trick is to spawn the package process (on execute='changed' in my case), let wpkg continue and the spawned process waits for wpkg to end and only then touches the log this combination will ftp the log to the server only if an error is logged: package id='reporterror' name='Report Packaging Errors' revision='4' priority='0' execute='changed' install cmd='%TOOLDIR%\curl.exe -f -s http://wpkg/wpkg/scripts/reporterrors.cmd -o %TOOLDIR%\reporterrors.cmd' condition check type='logical' condition='not' check type='file' condition='sizeequals' path='%TOOLDIR%\reporterrors.cmd' value='324' / /check /condition /install install cmd='%COMSPEC% /C start reporterrors %COMSPEC% /C %TOOLDIR%\reporterrors.cmd'/ upgrade include='install'/ /package with reporterrors.cmd being this: --- goto test :wait ping localhost :test reg query HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WPKG /v running | find true if %ERRORLEVEL% EQU 0 goto wait FIND ERROR %TEMP%\wpkg-%COMPUTERNAME%.log if %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 goto end %~dp0\curl.exe -f -s ftp://wpkg/wpkg-log/ -T %TEMP%\wpkg-%COMPUTERNAME%.log :end --- - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Disable FBWF before installing software
Wouldn't this cause a reboot loop? The enable and disable package both need an immediate reboot... One could set an environment variable to avoid this, which gets checked to prevent the execution of the install commands. The reboot loop problem exists with the first solution presented to the OP too. Does it? First Boot: the condition says FBWF is on, so FBWF gets disabled and an the system boots immediately (exit code='bla' reboot='true/) Second Boot: the condition for the disable command checks if it is already disabled. If it is disabled - no reboot - packages get installed. Then the Prio-0 Package installs last, enables FBWF, reboots. Third boot: No packages scheduled for install - so FBWF won't be disabled and prio0-package won't get installed (because it is execute=change). System boots normal. Of course getting this bug-free is a challenge (one bad package def will cause a reboot loop) - but i think it's possible. - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Disable FBWF before installing software
You can momentarily disable the FBWF to install programs and make other changes to the system but it requires a reboot. So : Disable FBWF Reboot Install Software Enable FBWF Reboot So I have used WPKG-GP successfully to install some basic software (Flash Player and what not) after disabling FBWF but would there be a way to have WPKG disable the FBWF if software has to be installed, reboot, proceed to the install and then re-enable it afterwards (and reboot) without going in a reboot cycle ? I guess the following might work: to disable before installation: (this would have to go in every package unfortunately) install cmd='disable FBWF' condition check if FBWF is on/ /condition exit code='successfully disable code' reboot='true'/ /install this will disable FBWF only if not already disabled and force an immediate reboot without marking the package as installed - on the next boot would skip this part and go on installing the package to enable after installation: have a package with priority 0 (so it installs last) and execute=changed attributes. This means this package will only install if some other package hat a state change (install/upgrade/remove). Enable FBWF there. - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Big problem with Java Update
Hello Stefan, The Java installer is a bit tricky and results in problems from time to time. Tricky might be not the right word. It's pretty buggy: It doesn't seem to handle open files. We have this problem too. If we run the update on any machine that happens to have SmartSVN or Jenkins installed (which use java, but not necessarily java.exe), then the installer will happily forget to install lib/rt.jar (which is kinda important) but continues without an error or reboot request. result is a broken JRE install. workaround is adding extra checks that will trigger a reinstall on the next wpkg-run - for 32bit java we use this: check type='file' condition='exists' path='%programfiles%\Java\jre7\lib\rt.jar' architecture='x86'/ check type='file' condition='exists' path='%programfiles(x86)%\Java\jre7\lib\rt.jar' architecture='x64'/ and because the installer will refuse to install over itself, just trigger a remove of the (probably broken) JRE just before the actual installation (as others have already mentioned).- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] User initiated runs of WPKG
I've been trying to figure out a way to allow end users to trigger WPKG to run when it is convenient to them. Ideally we could setup a shortcut on everyone's Start menu so that they could click Install Updates which would start wpkg.js. The issue I'm having with implementing this is that end users don't have local admin rights. Has anyone figured out a way to allow users to trigger wpkg.js with elevated privileges? With WPKG-GP you could just go and make a shortcut to %PROGRAMFILES%\wpkg-gp\wpkgpipeclient.exe Execute This would start the normal WPKG-GP process and report in a window. Better practice though would be asking the user to just reboot - for two reasons: 1) Many installers expect the program to not be running during updates, and will react differently if it is (kill, fail or schedule reboot). Though there are some workarounds for that (for MSIs using /norestart and catching exit code 3010), it's not as reliable as you'd wish, because many many installers don't seem to go through proper testing. 2) If you trigger a reboot in an install definition, the user will get kicked out of his session unexpectedly (and forcefully). This might result in bad karma. So better just pop up a message asking for a reboot and on the next boot, WPKG-GP will do its business. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Why VNC and not remote desktop? (was: Advice on remote assistance program to deploy)
i would like to know why you install another program on windows if you have RemoteDesktop on windows and an excelente client on linux? I've made a special CD for installing XP, and it set's by default the remote access option. I combine it plus Wake on Lan capabilities and works great here... * For you to login to XP via RDP it requires the user in front of the PC to log out. * During your session the user will only see the login screen. This means - you can't troubleshoot a user problem with the user showing you what went wrong - you dismiss possible error screens that you were supposed to look at (not every user is able to mail you a screenshot - especially if mail isn't working ) I know there's remote assistance available via the windows help menu - we tried that (because it's free!) but though it works pretty well once established, most times establishing the connection fails. And for non-expert users, it's still a bit complicated. We used UltraVNCs QuickSupport tool for quite a while, but that needs a ton of bandwidth and crashes a lot. Now we're a happy TeamViewer customer. It just works, that's really really cool. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] regex in registry paths?
What I want to do is to check if the 32-bit version of Java has been installed on 64-bit Windows 7. Is there a better way to do this? uninstall only checks for 64 bit apps (on 64-bit os), or will it check for both? I use these: Java 6u32 32bit check type=uninstall condition=versiongreaterorequal path=Java\(TM\) 6 Update \d+ value=6.0.320/ Java 6u32 64bit check type=uninstall condition=versiongreaterorequal path=Java\(TM\) 6 Update \d+ \(64-bit\) value=6.0.320/ Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] remove checks too quickly
using the foobar2000 package from the wiki (http://wpkg.org/Foobar2000) I had a strange problem. After removing the package from the profile, wpkg.js reported that the package could not be removed. But all the files were uninstalled corectly when I checked in explorer. It took me a while to find out that wpkg.js would check too quickly before the system had actually erased the files (probably because the uninstaller process would return too quickly) . So I added a new remove command right after the actual command which would just silently ping some machine and the remove succeeded... is this a known issue or is there some setting I can change to make wpkg wait a second or two before checking? Waiting a few seconds is easy, but is asking for error on slower systems. Better find out what the uninstaller process name is and use a script like this: --- waitforprocess.cmd --- @echo off :loop tasklist /FI IMAGENAME eq %1 | find /I /N %1 /NUL if not %ERRORLEVEL%==0 goto end REM There's no sleep in a command script... this is one ugly solution... ping 127.0.0.1 -n 5 NUL goto loop :end --- Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Firefox zombie state
Am 04.04.2012 16:17, schrieb Bruno CHOQUET: Falko, It's not a profil or host problem : i just want to uninstall Firefox 6. Installing the latest version of Firefox will replace any previous version. Not always - I just debugged a user whose 10.0.2esr Firefox was installed alongside 10.0.3esr. Nobody knows how this happened (both versions were installed by WPKG) and it worked correctly on all the other machines. WPKG sees the old version and reinstalled the new one every time - while always keeping the old one. - But this is not a WPKG-bug. Uninstalling MSI-installed software is easy even if you don't know the UUID or don't want to manage lists of UUIDs - you can query the MSI database via WMI and even uninstall this way (though it doesn't work very well - I found it better to extract the MSI-ID from WMI and then calling MSIEXEC /X). Uninstalling non-MSI is a bit more tricky. Basically you have to parse the Registry, find your UninstallString and call that, possibly adding any Unattended switches. I use a script for those cases where I don't know the exact path of the uninstaller. This comes in handy for software like PDFCreator where you absolutely have to uninstall the previous version. install cmd='cscript uninstall.vbs MySoftware /SILENTSWITCH' condition check type='uninstall' condition='exists' path='MySoftware'/ /condition /install I'm not sure if I should post my uninstall.vbs because it could end up on TheDailyWTF...- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Running at shutdown
Hello Alan Does WPKG put messages to the screen, for example do not shut down or power off, installing software? Windows Vista and later changed the logout and shutdown procedure. The mechanism the old wpkgclient is using doesn't work with Vista+. It is pretty much the same reason why wpkgclient can't delay logon any more.. It is still possible to delay shutdown (Acronis Trueimage for example delays shutdown for a few hours if a backup/validation is running) - but it's a different mechanism and wpkgclient would need to be updated. Do the msiexec progress bars get shown? not possible on Vista+ - WPKG runs in a different session and (AFAIK) it is not possible to show dialogs in the active user session like in XP-.- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
[wpkg-users] Problems with download tag
Hello, I have problems with the download tag and wpkg 1.2.1-rc20... it looks like 1.2.1-rc20 is totally ignoring download tags... can anybody reproduce this?- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Problems with download tag
fixed it - at least this works - I don't really speak Jscript :) Index: wpkg.js === --- wpkg.js (Revision 1304) +++ wpkg.js (Arbeitskopie) @@ -1851,7 +1851,7 @@ } } } - return downloadsArray; + return downloadsArrayRef; } /** From: heiko.hel...@horiba.com To: wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org Date: 21.09.2011 11:50 Subject: [wpkg-users] Problems with download tag Hello, I have problems with the download tag and wpkg 1.2.1-rc20... it looks like 1.2.1-rc20 is totally ignoring download tags... can anybody reproduce this? - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
[wpkg-users] No console output when using /debug
Hello, When using wpkg.js (1.2.1-RC18) with /debug switch (specifically, /debug /noreboot /nonotify), then there's no output to the console any more. Is this a bug or did I miss a change? Best Regards Heiko Helmle - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] MSI install issues
wpkg-users-boun...@lists.wpkg.org wrote on 08.09.2011 03:41:01: I have one msi install that I am having issues with using wpkg, it will not create the program files shortcuts or desktop shortcuts. I have moved this msi from a standard windows domain GPO, which installs just fine. I just wanted to try to keep all my installs in one spot. From what I can tell in the logs it installs fine with no errors. Has anyone run into this before? Did you set any properties? Try ALLUSERS=1 - this helps most MSI install the Shortcuts into %ALLUSERSPROFILE% instead of %USERPROFILE%. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] [Bug 234] Additional command line parameters /noquiet /notify etc
MOD: Updated log file handling. Now there is no intermediate local log file created any more. Instead a log is kept in memory as long as the log file is not initialized. If anything goes wrong WPKG still tries to flush the logs at least to a log file in %TEMP%. This potentially increases efficiency and execution speed slightly. Does that mean there will be no log during WPKG-Processing - only at the end? Because if yes, this would make debugging a package a lot harder - I routinely look at the last log-line when a package is hanging or taking very long. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Using wpkg to set windows update to use wsus
[wpkg-users] Using wpkg to set windows update to use wsus Does anyone have the settings they use to push out the settings to make windows use their internal WSUS server? Normally when we setup a new pc we go in to gpedit.msc and manually configure them. However I have found the registry settings that I can force. The problem is the settings are not reflected by gpedit.msc when I import the registry settings. Is this normal? If so I know how I can send out the registry changes with wpkg. Does anyone else do this currently? You can just adjust some registry keys. there's even documentation! http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc708449%28WS.10%29.aspx - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] How to uninstall old version, reboot and install new version after the reboot
Hello Matthias, a) this problem is fixed in recent tortoisesvn-builds - it's an MSI-bug that they worked around now. Nevertheless, if you replace older versions, the bug might still bite you. b) uninstalling during upgrade works fine here - reboot in between is not necessary for tortoise and can be ignored (worked here) - there's no checks done during the upgrade. Could you tell some more details as of what files in your upgrade scripts? Best Regards Heiko From: Martetschlaeger, Matthias matthias.martetschlae...@at.fujitsu.com To: wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org Date: 21.07.2011 11:44 Subject: [wpkg-users] How to uninstall old version, reboot and install new version after the reboot Hello, it’s currently the second day I try to realize this and all my attempts failed so far. The origin of my attempt are problems with the installation of TortoiseSVN. Whenever I do an upgrade I lose the entries in the Explorer context menu. To solve this issue, I want to uninstall the old version first and do a fresh install. My first attempt was to execute the uninstall-command in the upgrade-paragraph but the install/upgrade-check caused problems with this attempt. So I removed the check to avoid this problem but removing the check led to the installation of Tortoise on each reboot. This behaviour might be explained with this sentence in the wpkg-documentation: Also, if no checks were specified, WPKG will say that the installation have failed. (http://wpkg.org/Packages.xml ) What remains is that I don’t know how to realize the demanded behaviour. I hope someone can help me. BRs, Matthias Geschäftsführer/Managing Directors: Dr. Joji Murakami, Dirk Weinsziehr, Dr. Gerhard Roos Sitz/Seat: Linz; Firmenbuch/Commercial Register: Landesgericht Linz FN313602f This e-mail and any attachment contains information which is private and confidential and is intended for the addressee only. If you are not an addressee, you are not authorised to read, copy or use the e-mail or any attachment. If you have received this e-mail in error, please notify the sender by return e-mail and then delete it. - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Host match disruptive changes in 1.2?
information you provide it seems to be logical and intentional for me that the default profile is applied to the host since your name=. would match all the hosts. If you don't intend to match them all then make sure hosts.xml does not contain such a catch all host entry which will match any host name. Either sort the host entries in your hosts.xml or make sure you literally sort your hosts/*.xml files and only the last one contains such a catch all entry. Darn I forgot about this. There was indeed a change I noticed but forgot to open a discussion about it. It looks like the order of the xml-files changed during some RC. I remember having the catchall in hosts.xml and several normal definitions in the hosts/ subdirectory. In one RC, WPKG started to load hosts.xml first and the definitions in the hosts/ subdirectory after that. So the catchall-definition was loaded first, matched and no other hosts (from hosts/) matched (because applyMultiple was off). I worked around this by emptying the hosts.xml and putting the catchall into an extra file zzz_catchall.xml, which I hope is guaranteed to load as the last definition. So at the moment it's this way: If you have a catchall in hosts.xml and applyMultiple=off then your definitions in hosts/*.xml won't match, because the catchall matches first. Hope I could help Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Host match disruptive changes in 1.2?
Honestly I did even not think about this too much before since in my mind people were using one or the other, but not both. But as it's technically possible to use hosts.xml and hosts/*.xml at the same time I think the old approach was more logical. I thought the same, but when I first worked with WPKG it crashed when hosts.xml didn't exist, so I assumed - since it had to be there - that using both was kinda best practice :)- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
[wpkg-users] Replace xmlhttp download with curl/wget
Hello, While wondering why download is so slow, i looked around. The problem with WSH and URL downloads is: * It's a kludge. That's why it's documented as should not use * It even can crash the CMD-window WPKG runs in. * It works only with HTTP * It loads the file completely into memory before dumping it to disk. (wasteful) So maybe we could (optionally) have an external tool handle the download tag - curl or wget are excellent specialised (and free/GPL) tools. Pros: * much more robust than the WSH download method * saves memory * faster (probably because of the memory savings) * Support not only for HTTP, but FTP too. Cons: * WPKG would rely on an external binary (so it's foreign code, but at least no license problems) Why downloading anyway: 2 reasons: * I don't want installations to stall/fail in the middle of the (critical) process just because the network goes down (mobile users tend to be pretty mobile sometimes) * some Installers (especially MSI) are for some reasons really really slow and use huge network resources (10x the actual size) when run over SMB. They work fine when run from local storage. What do you think? Best Regards Heiko Helmle- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Replace xmlhttp download with curl/wget
So we can have predefined options for e.g. wget or curl in wpkg.js, while preserving the possibility to use another tool. ...eg, a script (cmd suffices?!) that also check the MD5 of the file, preventing wpkg tring to install ever an ever that corrupted installer. ;-) This clearly needs an hash= or md5= field in download / tag. Great idea! But this'll require another external tool, because hash calculation via WSH is a world of slow.- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Reflections on a new application deployment software.
wpkg-users-boun...@lists.wpkg.org wrote on 14.06.2011 23:32:37: I'm currently thinking about a new deployment tool software for You might want to take a look at ocsinventory ( http://www.ocsinventory-ng.org/). It might scratch your itch :) Microsoft systems (XP/Vista/7) like WPKG but with the following functions: - Installed directly as a Windows service (no cscript) I understand this. wpkg.js is a good concept but it suffers from lots of bugs and limitations in WSH. If cscript would not be the steaming pile of * that it is, I'd love it. Updates are no concern. wpkg.js hasn't seen a release since 2009. Even the bugfixes in SVN are still unreleased. - Retrieve the list of the packages to be installed on the computer from an HTTP server (a PHP script that queries an LDAP directory to choose a database or xml file like Profiles.xml). The description of the packages could be an XML file whose format is identical to WPKG. you can already do that with wpkg. (with wpkgexpress) - Retrieving of files (installation programs) from an HTTP server Dito - but be aware - wpkg uses cscript to retrieve HTML - and will load everything in RAM before dumping to disk. If you try to the a notes-install this way off to the swapfile you go :) Workaround is getting a wget.exe and calling that to retrieve your files. - Signing packages and files to ensure they have not been altered and nobody use this tool to install other software. This is definitely a weak point in wpkg that's not easily fixed. As the main program is not run locally, there's not even a point in signing the data files. - Sends the installation state through the HTTP server (a PHP script that stores information in a DB) you can already do that with wpkg. Just upload the wpkg.xml as a post-script. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Blank user interaction window
Hello Kevin, I have the same issue with Win7 (32 and 64) and WPKG-Client and mentioned this on this list back in August. This seems to be a bug only in 1.3.14 - if you can live with the assortment of bugs in any other version, use those. Or try wpkg-gp. I'd love to see the source of 1.3.14 - especially a diff against 1.3.13 to see what could have caused this, but no source tarballs and no tags in the svn... Best Regards Heiko From: Kevin van 't IJssel k.ijs...@eqaz.nl To: wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org Date: 20.04.2011 12:22 Subject: [wpkg-users] Blank user interaction window Hello wpkg users, At the moment i'm busy with setting up some services while using wpkg, with some programs i'll get a user interaction window, so wpkg hangs on software because interaction is needed, But the problem is the window from the program, is completely blank, Kind regards, Kevin Met vriendelijke groet, Kevin van 't IJssel Verzonden vanaf mijn BlackBerry®-toestel - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] WPKG Development Status
Hello CL, You could marry this feature with the prompt. AFAIK there's an API for Applications to pop up a message on shutdown (like Word with a document open displays Save, Don't Save, Cancel). You could pop up a dialog as well (install update, shutdown immediately) via the same API, but (upon install update) signal the OS that the shutdown was cancelled and instead emit a force shutdown once WPKG has finnished. The issue is that with Windows = Vista no process is allowed to delay indefinitely or cancel shutdown. If a user space process is trying to do this, the black shutdown screen asking you if you want to wait for the process, or kill it appears after a small timeout. You're right - just tested again - and if an application tries the cancel-hook the black screen appears immediately. I guess this is MS' reaction to lots of Applications abusing that hook and users asking why windows doesn't shut down at all... grrr Alternatively there must be a way for a service to prevent shutdown. Acronis Backup Recovery uses this and (at least for that piece of SW) it's a huge headache - Our installations of Acronis regularly fall into endless loops and then Windows 7 stalls at shutdown (Actions running is displayed.) Most likely this software is using a shutdown script. This could be done by wpkg-gp as well, but without any user feedback. Alternatively, wpkg-gp could execute wpkg.js when it receives the shutdown service signal. This can potentially delay shutdown indefinitely, but there is no way to provide user feedback here either. (At least no documented way, because MS software does this, Windows Update for example). Hmm... if the user is expecting a delay (because he was told before shutdown or even ack'd it) then I don't think this is a big problem. What could really bite us would be an installer hanging (e.g. waiting for input on an invisible screen). How does WPKG-GP handle this on boot? Is there a timeout? some things I'd love to see: - Ability for the WPKG-Script to start as a different (local) user. Typically WPKG runs as user SYSTEM - I had lots of problems with installers barfing when run as SYSTEM - especially on 64bit systems. Our WPKG-Client runs as a different user now (but still elevated) - no problems any more and saved me from repackaging quite a few installers. This is possible by running the wpkg-gp service as another user :), and should be configurable via the installer in a future version. Yep - I'm pretty sure it'l work by giving the service the same treatment that the old WPKG-Client gets - * Add user with random PW * Add user to admin-group * Add username to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList (so it won't show up in the logon-list) * sc config type= own obj=... password= ... * Give User SeServiceLogonRight - Ability to debug somehow. Some processes still make problems and show dialog windows (mostly errors) when run by a service (but not when run directly via cmdline). I know this is impossible on pre- login - but for the second mode (system tray call to service) - it should be possible to switch to the installing desktop. Ahh, this would actually be difficult! As the service is being run in a hidden desktop on W7. I am wondering: Wouldn't a runas / u:the_user_running_wpkg_service path_to_wpkg.js /switches do much the same thing? Not if your WPKG runs as user SYSTEM - runas won't do this. If you have a worker-user instead of SYSTEM, this totally works as long as the installers behave the same on a hidden and on a visible desktop. If the hidden Desktop is the one that comes up as an icon during install (like with the WPKG-Client An application wants attention), this would suffice. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] WPKG Development Status
Some Ideas I carry around for a while: - Optionally run in system tray and check for updated packages at regular intervals. Inform users about updates and prompt them with alternatives. (the platform is designed to be able do this) I really looking forward to this one. I have lots of users who only boot once a month (on MSPatchWednesday) and hibernate their PCs most of the time. Also there's a bunch of users who roam around with their notebooks and primarily use the WLAN - which is typically not started before login. - Hopefully be able to install software at shutdown with feedback to user (this is not easily achievable AFAIK, as Windows does not have an API for giving information to users at shutdown) You could marry this feature with the prompt. AFAIK there's an API for Applications to pop up a message on shutdown (like Word with a document open displays Save, Don't Save, Cancel). You could pop up a dialog as well (install update, shutdown immediately) via the same API, but (upon install update) signal the OS that the shutdown was cancelled and instead emit a force shutdown once WPKG has finnished. Alternatively there must be a way for a service to prevent shutdown. Acronis Backup Recovery uses this and (at least for that piece of SW) it's a huge headache - Our installations of Acronis regularly fall into endless loops and then Windows 7 stalls at shutdown (Actions running is displayed.) some things I'd love to see: - Ability for the WPKG-Script to start as a different (local) user. Typically WPKG runs as user SYSTEM - I had lots of problems with installers barfing when run as SYSTEM - especially on 64bit systems. Our WPKG-Client runs as a different user now (but still elevated) - no problems any more and saved me from repackaging quite a few installers. - Ability to debug somehow. Some processes still make problems and show dialog windows (mostly errors) when run by a service (but not when run directly via cmdline). I know this is impossible on pre-login - but for the second mode (system tray call to service) - it should be possible to switch to the installing desktop. And this is far fetched: - Security: Ability to sign the wpkg.js executable and have the signature checked by WPKG-GP before invocation. Of course this only makes sense if wpkg.js gains the ability to check its files' signatures. This way the wpkg-fileshare would be a bit more tamperproof. I have a few more ideas, but those would require enhancing wpkg.js and being able to interact with a service. Best Regards Keep up the great work :) Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Windows 7 Install
Hello Jeff, I found out that a few versions of the WPKG.MSI are buggy. The problem is that they don't request elevated mode, then try to write to privileged space and fail. On most systems, writing to %programfiles% even works but they fail when wpkginst.exe is started as part of the installation process - wpkginst.exe definitely needs elevated privilege. You can work around this bug by starting msiexec.exe already elevated (like running it from an elevated shell). If you're doing it remotely, you'll need to use the Administrator account (because it's always elevated) or tune your local security settings to add your installation account to always run elevated. Best Regards Heiko From: jeff_appleg...@fws.gov To: Natxo Asenjo natxo.ase...@gmail.com Cc: wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org Date: 21.12.2010 16:40 Subject: Re: [wpkg-users] Windows 7 Install I am getting the error when I am attempting to install the wpkg-client software. I am using the 64bit installer to attempt to install the software. When I right click the file there is no option to run as administrator. My assumption is that the option isn't there due to having administrative privileges. When I attempt to install the software I am not getting the log file in %windir%\temp\wpkg-%computername%.log. My best guess on this is that the software is erroring out before it starts writing to the temp directory. I have attempted to adjust the properties on the Temp directory to no avail. Jeff Applegate ASRC Management Services Contracted To: USFWS Fort Collins Science Center 2150 Centre Ave., Bldg C Fort Collins, CO 80526 Phone: 970-226-9178 Fax: 970-226-9230 Email: jeff_appleg...@fws.gov Natxo Asenjo natxo.ase...@gmail.com 12/21/2010 12:56 AM To jeff_appleg...@fws.gov cc wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org Subject Re: [wpkg-users] Windows 7 Install On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 10:12 PM, jeff_appleg...@fws.gov wrote: Has anyone seen the following error: First Error Message: You must have an administration privilege on this computer. Second Error Message: There is a problem with this windows installer package. A program run as part of this setup did not complete as expected. Contact your support personnel or package vendor. First I am an administrator on the system as I can install other packages with no issue. I have also tried downloading the package from the website again. The package is 1.3.9 and is x64. I have also attempted to run the installer locally. This is on a clean install of Windows 7 x64. Any and all help is appreciated. well, it definately looks like a permissions issue :) Do you get this problem when trying to install the wpkg client software itself? Or is this a message from a package to be installed by the wpkg software? I have no x64 windows 7, but I run wpkg x64 with windows 2008r2 without those issues. If the message is from a wpkg package (wpkg is trying to install another application, then you need to check some things: If you run wpkg as a windows service, under what account does it run? I run the standard package as local system and it just works. If you run it in a scheduled task, check also the account that is running this. As a last (for now) troubleshooting measure, in %windir%\temp there is a file wpkg-%computername%.log with very detailed info of what wpkg has done during its last run. Check it out to find errors. you can also run wpkg from the cli with the /debug flag to see the same info live on a console. -- groeten, natxo - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Windows 7 - Compatible?
Hello, The system is now that the wpkg-gp.dll running as a GPE will contact a service and ask it to execute wpkg.js. Would you mind checking this into a branch of you public repository at g-code? Maybe there's help out there :) (I'm not promising anything because personally I have c++-phobia :) - but a tray application is no witchcraft. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] [BUG?] On upgrade old check condition are parsed...
But i've discovered that anyway the ''upgrade'' actions are executed, even if the new check condition are false for a ''broken'' vlc installation. Seems to me that WPKG evaluate on upgrade the old check condition, and not the new one (or better: evaluate on pre-action the old one, and on post-action the new one). if you bump the revision, upgrade will _always_ be executed. no checks will be performed before the upgrade - only after everything's done. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Windows 7 x64 location of wpkg.xml
Hello Damian, You need to install the x64-version of the WPKG-Client on x64-windows. There are a few bounce-like tricks to do with the x86-one but using the x64-version on 64bit-OS is the cleanest (and most simple) solution. Best Regards Heiko From: Damian Kasper dkas...@jw.org.au To: wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org Date: 08.11.2010 01:33 Subject: [wpkg-users] Windows 7 x64 location of wpkg.xml To All, We are using the latest WPKG and WPKG Client and are having a slight problem with Windows 7 x64. Every time WPKG runs on our Windows 7 x64 clients, we get this problem: 2010-11-05 13:39:34, DEBUG : Settings file does not exist. Creating a new file. 2010-11-05 13:39:34, DEBUG : Saving sorted settings to 'C:\Windows\System32\wpkg.xml'. 2010-11-05 13:39:34, DEBUG : Saving XML : C:\Windows\System32\wpkg.xml The problem is that the wpkg.xml settings file is actually getting saved to C:\Windows\SysWOW64\wpkg.xml. How can we either force WPKG to save to 'C:\Windows\System32\wpkg.xml' OR force the WPKG Client to look at the Windows 7 x64 equivalent of 'C:\Windows\SysWOW64\wpkg.xml'? Please keep in mind our environment has both Windows XP x86 and Windows 7 x64 clients. Thanks for your help! Damian - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Bandwidth Limiting
wpkg-users-boun...@lists.wpkg.org wrote on 30.08.2010 20:02:34: From: Aaron Bliss aaron.bl...@gmail.com If you are using a samba server for your back end, the max xmit configuration option may be what you are looking for. No, sorry - max xmit limits the packet size. You don't want to do this and you shouldn't.- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Windows 7 - wpkg client service starts, but Network path was not found
Hey, We solved this by activating offline mode and a generous timeout of 60 seconds. Turns out Windows 7 brings up the network very late (sometimes even after the user has already logged in). 60 seconds is a pretty big timeout (maybe 30 is enough...), but in my Test-VM at least, a 10second timeout worked only 50% of bootups. From: donotc...@fastmail.fm To: wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org Date: 13.08.2010 17:48 Subject: [wpkg-users] Windows 7 - wpkg client service starts, but Network path was not found Hi, after using the WPKG client successfully for some time with WinXP machines and a Samba 3 NT-style domain, I'm now trying to add some Windows 7 Professional PCs to the mix. (This is NOt a wireless network.) The WPKG client service (I've tried both 1.3.9 and 1.3.14beta) starts ok on the Win7 machines, but it never connects to the samba share where the wpkg .js and .xml files, etc. are. In the PC's event viewer, the wpkgservice shows the following error message: WNetAddConnection2- The network path was not found. A packet capture shows that Win7 is indeed resolving the name of the samba server when the WPKG service is running. It even tries to do a web client connect to the WPKG share (but we don't use the WebDAV stuff in our environment). But it does not even attempt to connect to the Samba share. If, after logging in, I type net start wpkgservice , then everything works as expected. I tried delaying the wpkgservice service startup by adding dependencies on other windows services, such as spooler, lanmanworkstation, etc. but that did not help. I also tried using the WPKG client's Execute before setting to run a local batch file that slept for 30 seconds, but that had no effect. I've seen some others post here with similar problems, but I never saw that any solution was found. Again, this isn't a wireless network, so that is not the cause of the failure. It seems like maybe some Win7 networking setting could be tweaked? Or maybe the WPKG Client could use some other method of connecting to a share on Win7? Or is it a samba issue? Thanks in advance for any help! -matt - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users - wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
[wpkg-users] Garbled Display on Win7 secure desktop
Hello, Does anyone know why all displays (including the cscript window) are garbled/broken on the Windows 7 secure desktop with wpkg-client 1.3.14? (Curiously it seems to look better with wpkg-client 1.3.13) Tested on Windows 7 VMs and real hardware, 32 and 64 bit: * Install WPKG-Client * let it run with Show UI * WPKG runs on the secure desktop * if you switch to the secure desktop (Click Show interactive services icon) - All Windows are drawn incomplete or only as black rectangles. - This prevents easy debug (removing the /qn from the msiexec and looking at the output). And it's a problem with stupid installers showing UI although they were invoked as quiet. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Registry Check failing
check type=registry condition=exists path=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer \UpgradeCodes\AA5D9C68C00F12943B2F6CA09FE28244 / Neither the registry path 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer \UpgradeCodes\AA5D9C68C00F12943B2F6CA09FE28244' nor its expanded value of 'HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer \UpgradeCodes\AA5D9C68C00F12943B2F6CA09FE28244' exist: the check failed Is this by chance a 64bit system and the registry key belongs to 32bit software? I stumbled over this a few times - you have to check on HTLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows[...] Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] A few quick questions
Also, what is the best way to use wpkg to change the administrator account password on windows xp and vista? I don't know the best way - i used a variant of a vbscript Dr.Google found for me. If you have powershell installed on XP I'd suggest you use that instead - it's much more readable. But VBScript has the advantage on being installed on every supported PC-Windows by default. It also activates the administrator and disabled expiration. Note that this snippet only works on Windows-Versions where the admin-user is called Administrator. If you use French, for example, you have to use 'Administrateur': dim PW PW = myPassword Const ADS_UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD = h1 dim objUser, objUserFlags, objPasswordExpirationFlag set objUser = GetObject(WinNT://./Administrator) objUser.AccountDisabled = false objUserFlags = objUser.Get(UserFlags) objPasswordExpirationFlag = objUserFlags OR ADS_UF_DONT_EXPIRE_PASSWD objUser.Put userFlags, objPasswordExpirationFlag objUser.SetPassword PW objUser.SetInfo- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] WPKG and WPKG-GP
I was under the impression that the current WPKG client can't delay the logon and display information during the boot up process http://wpkg.org/Screenshots#Windows_Vista on Windows = Vista ok, that. I thought you meant it didn't work at all :) Well it works, but no logon-delay. Are these problems (logon-delay and the interactive screen) going away in the future or are we supposed to move to wpkg-gp? at the moment i'm going to deploy the normal wpkg-client on 7, running the wpkgworker as a seperate admin user instead of SYSTEM (because of the WOW64 redirector). wpkg.svn.sourceforge.net is pretty quiet in that matter... Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Problems with the WOW64 mess
Hello Tomasz, List, Are you sure? Shouldn't the Connecting stage fail first? Can you try: net use /delete * prior to any tests (to make sure you're not trying to be connected twice anywhere)? Tried, - net use list is empty. I switched to a Win7 VM (32bit) for testing and the error gets more confusing: Details: Action: Offline mode - connecting to wpkg.head.de Result: [OK] Message: Action: Executing as wpkg Result: [OK] Message: Action: Connecting to \\wpkg.head.de\wpkg\wpkg.js as HEAD\wpkg Result: [OK] Message: Action: Trying to read \\wpkg.head.de\wpkg\wpkg.js Result: [FAILED] Message: An unknown error occurred while accessing \\wpkg.head.de\wpkg\wpkg.js. Well process monitor actually logs this: 11:55:12,7514484wpkginst.exe3696CreateFile \\wpkg.head.de\wpkg\wpkg.js LOGON FAILURE Desired Access: Generic Read, Disposition: Open, Options: Synchronous IO Non-Alert, Non-Directory File, Attributes: N, ShareMode: None, AllocationSize: n/a WIN7-VDEV\root Verbindliche Beschriftung\Hohe Verbindlichkeitsstufe Interesting from my point of view is, that this failure gets logged on behalf of user root (the user running wpkginst.exe) instead of user wpkg. But this may be the nature of ProcMon - because user wpkg doesn't show up in the log at all. BTW: While this MAY be due to bad credentials, it actually isn't. If I put in bad credentials, the process fails on the connect stage (which is correct): Action: Offline mode - connecting to wpkg.head.de Result: [OK] Message: Action: Executing as wpkg Result: [OK] Message: Action: Connecting to \\wpkg.head.de\wpkg\wpkg.js as HEAD\wpkg2 Result: [FAILED] Message: WNetAddConnection2- Zugriff verweigert Action: Trying to read \\wpkg.head.de\wpkg\wpkg.js Result: [FAILED] Message: Access to \\wpkg.head.de\wpkg\wpkg.js was denied.- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Problems with the WOW64 mess
Tried - and failed with an administrative user test. settings test is odd: Executing as test - OK Connecting to \\wpkg\wpkg.js as domain\wpkg - OK Trying to read \\wpkg\wpkg.js - FAIL - Access denied... this doesn't make much sense, because a) I can read the file perfectly on a cmd shell as user test Most likely you're already connected to the share as a different user (net use...) - Windows can't bind twice to the same share with the same credentials, and you see the error. Are you sure? Shouldn't the Connecting stage fail first? And why does it work when I use Windows runas and not WPKGs built in execution context feature? I suspect that WPKG execution context means something different than I'm expecting... Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Best regards, Heiko Helmle Software Development ___ HORIBA Europe Automation Division GmbH Zabergäustr. 3 73765 Neuhausen (Germany) Phone: +49 7158-933-415 Fax: +49 7158-933-615 E-mail:heiko.hel...@horiba.com www:http://www.ats.horiba.com Geschäftsführer: Thomas E. Ehmann, Yuichi Muroga, Takashi Nagano Amtsgericht Stuttgart, HRB 213200- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Problems with the WOW64 mess
I agree that folder redirection makes it quite hard to track what is really happening on the system. However I am running Windows x64 since years (since my first Windows Vista installation) and never had such issues yet. In addition I was under the impression that %TEMP% expands to % SystemRoot%\temp (c:\windows\temp) for the system account. At least I've never seen it expanding to systemprofile\AppData\Temp which looks anyway wrong, if at all it should expand to systemprofile\AppData\Local\Temp but this would also lead to the problems you describe. But I am quite sure %TEMP% of the system profile expands to windows\Temp. Did you test this on 7? As far as i know, this did change on 7 - (And you're right, it is \local\Temp, but the base path is still unfortunately %WINDIR%\system32\systemprofile) Even installers writing temporary data to %AppData% should work because the installer/archive will be a 32-bit self-extracting archive writing to the redirected SysWOW64 folder. Then it invokes msiexec.exe, in any casethe 32-bit process cannot open the 64-bit binary from the (real) system32\ folder and executes SysWOW64\msiexec.exe which is a 32-bit application as well. This is true in theory - and the msiexec.exe called by the install.exe actually is 32bit, but all msiexec.exe does is call the Windows Installer Service via some internal Interface - and that one is 64bit. In any case I don't like boxed installers too much. So I used to extract Installers which extract MSI files in advance and then work with pure MSI files. Which is fine when all the .exe does is unpacking and running the MSI. In the case of X-Manager I spent nearly 2 days and finally giving up. This Installer is installscript-driven and convincing the MSI to run without installscript produces a broken install. I'm ok with the boxed versions if they give all the options I need and work reliably. Saves me from much work disecting every version upgrade. Java's Installer is okay-ish, except for the 64bit issue. In your case you might run your Installshield installer on a test system, then during the installation do not close the installation window and grab the MSI files from %TEMP%. Tried and did for many packages - but some are left, those pesky ones that need InstallScript for the install to go right. But I see light - I looked through some Docs and it seems that (by default) the builtin Administrator local user on Windows 7 is running elevated by default. That would mean no UAC-Prompts for this user - so it'd work for silent installs. It just needs to be activated (and passworded). I'll try this and report back to the list :) Best Regards Heiko Helmle- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] [Bug 183] Downgrade should fall back to Upgrade when no downgrade rules exist
Hello List install cmd=... / upgrade cmd=.../ upgrade inherit=install/ I love this idea - this would save lots of copy/paste and s/install/upgrade/g, make the xmls easier to read and maintain. Best Regards Heiko Helmle- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Excluding particular OS and architecture types from patch application
Do you mean something along the lines package package-id=7zip OSGreaterorequal=6.1 / That is interesting, however i think conceptually the OS and arch dependency belongs to the package itself rather than its profile assignment. Yes, something like this. I disagree that packages should be OS dependent. The vast majority of software packages run on any Windows version available. The decision not to install it on specific Windows version belongs more to the profile than to the package. Sure there are some packages which should not be applied on specific OS versions but if the profile supports limiting the package assignment to OS it canbe handled perfectly on profile level. Hmm... what do you think of adding conditionals to the install-command utilizing the check syntax that's already there anyways... something like this install cmd='install-x86' conditional='true' check type=registry condition=equals path='HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment\PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE' value=x86 / /install install cmd='install-x64' conditional='true' check type=registry condition=equals path='HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment\PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE' value=AMD64 / /install This doesn't change the behaviour of scripts already deployed and might add only little code to wpkg (though I didn't look at that part of the code). And it's far less complicated. this of course means (again) admins writing proper checks :) Maybe adding some easy 'shortcut checks' could also make life easier (and xmls smaller), like a check type arch or winversion. check type=arch condition=equals value=AMD64 / check type=winversion condition='versiongreaterorequal' value=6.0/ I know these are easily replaced by registry check or cmd script, so I consider this (and the installchecks) as 'nice to have'. (just an idea floating around) Best Regards Heiko Helmle- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] windows 7 problem with one package
This is a shot in the dark - is show gui activated in the wpkg service? I had several packages behave oddly when this was not active (stalling or failing). I never thought of that. On your suggestion I tried showing the GUI, but the results were the same. Except that now the Interactive Services Detection does indicate that a process needs some user interaction. When I try to display the window, I see only two black boxes, without any text or buttons. One of the boxes is probably cscript. The other may hold the answer to the problem, but I cannot see it. If there's a command window, you may have run into the WSH stdout-buffer bug. Does your installer output something into the command windows? If it's too much, you'll need to redirect it to NUL. Last step would be watching the install with Process Explorer and/pr Process Monitor. Good idea. I started process explorer after the install hung. I tried to bring it to the front, but it said there were no visible windows to display. Are there any children hanging under the cscript.exe running wpkg? This may give you a clue what process is hanging. If it's a cmd.exe directly under cscript, it certainly may be the stdout-bug. That points to redirecting the output of the script to NUL Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] windows 7 problem with one package
I have a simple package that installs an engineering program. It looks like this: package id=retainpro name=Retain Pro 9 revision=2 check type=uninstall condition=versiongreaterorequal path=Retain Pro 9 value=2009.9 / install cmd='%SOFTWARE%\RetainPro\RP9_SETUP.exe /s' / upgrade cmd='%SOFTWARE%\RetainPro\RP9_SETUP.exe /s' / /package This works on all my XP machines. On Win 7 it works fine if run from a command prompt using wpkg in debug mode. But if run at boot time it hangs and does not return. This does not appear to be the protected desktop problem recently discussed, because if I log in as administrator immediately after bootup I do not see the message about Interactive Services Detection. This is a shot in the dark - is show gui activated in the wpkg service? I had several packages behave oddly when this was not active (stalling or failing). Does this behaviour occur also if you start the service manually (sc start wpkgservice) some minutes after full bootup? Reason is that at bootup services in Win7 can be deferred - this may change behaviour. Last step would be watching the install with Process Explorer and/pr Process Monitor. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Package upgrade and checks
Hello Marc, Hi guys, Then I ran WPKG again expecting that the checks will be met and the upgrade commands wouldn't be run. But the debug output states that the checks were not executed and the upgrade commands were run immediately leading to the same error again. Is this the intended behaviour? Shouldn't the checks be run every time to avoid situations like these? This is correct and documented (but i admit a little unexpected) behaviour. I wrote a patch some time ago that makes this configurable - but since there was no reaction, I assumed everybody was okay with the original behaviour. anyways, here's the bug: http://bugzilla.wpkg.org/show_bug.cgi?id=180 once you applied the patch to wpkg.js you can use checkpolicy=always in the package definition to force checks on update.- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
[wpkg-users] MSI-Installer 1.3.14 on Win7
Hello List, I'm just checking out the 1.3.14 beta on Windows 7 and seem to be running into trouble (and a quick search over bugzilla and the list didn't get results). Just double-clicking on the MSI brings me an error You must have administrative privilege to run this tool. during install and the MSI gets rolled back. This despite my user does have the right to elevate AND the MSI requested an elevation on the beginning of the install. To me it looks like the MSI-command to run the Configurator-Tool is missing the run elevated flag. But on the other hand I guess someone must have run into this already and maybe I missed something. PS: Beta 1.3.10 runs fine. Best Regards Heiko Helmle- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
[wpkg-users] Old Feature Request / Perhaps New Idea
Hello List, I was looking through the archives searching for a way to find out the Start Menu Path on different language version of windows. I read that you considered hardcoding all possible languages. Well - the start-menu part is saved in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Common Programs If WPKG could expand some of those paths (Common Desktop would also be very useful), this could simplify lots of install scripts. My dream feature would be WPKG able to expand any registry value into an environment variable, which then could be used inside an install cmd. What do you think? Best Regards Heiko Helmle- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Old Feature Request / Perhaps New Idea
Hello Stefan, Thanks for your reply - Well - the start-menu part is saved in the registry: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion \Explorer\Shell Folders\Common Programs If WPKG could expand some of those paths (Common Desktop would also be very useful), this could simplify lots of install scripts. You may want to open a command prompt and execute the SET command. You will notice the following environment variables: USERPROFILE and ALLUSERSPROFILE ... Which expand only to a part of the needed path. And the part missing is localized. I already searched all the standard env-variables for useful stuff, but localization bites me all the time. The ALLUSERSPROFILE will point the root folder for the common desktop, so using %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Desktop will work on any localization, since it works for me on German and English localizations. ... As long as the Desktop ist in the path .\Desktop. I didn't check (yet) but I bet, French XP might not be called Desktop. And even in ENU/DEU it doesn't work for the Start Menu - but the registry entry Common Programs and Common Start Menu always points to the global equivalents. And for added bonus - those entries work in Win7 - for shortcuts you won't have to check what Win-Version you're on - just expand the registry values. you can workaround this with a vbscript using something like this: --snip-- dim oShell set oShell = WScript.CreateObject(Wscript.shell) commonPrograms = oShell.RegRead(HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Common Programs) oshell.run %COMSPEC% /C del commonPrograms \shortcut.lnk, 1, true --snip-- but would'nt it be nice just to use install cmd=%COMSPEC% /C del %COMMON_START_MENU%\shortcut.lnk / or maybe regexpand path= HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders\Common Startup value=STARTUP / install cmd=%COMSPEC% /C del %STARTUP%\StupidApp.lnk / On the other hand you can create JS scripts to create shortcuts, see http://wpkg.org/Category:Utility_Scripts for an example of such a script for desktop shortcuts. Well - this won't help if you want to delete shortcuts, or move them around, or do something in the global appdata (which is different on XP from 7). Most Installers already create shortcuts - but often too many or in wrong/unwanted places. Or place stuff in the Startup-Folder. I just thought this might be a pretty simple (and possibly useful) addition, that could save lots of external extra-scripting. Best Regards Heiko- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
Re: [wpkg-users] Old Feature Request / Perhaps New Idea
Most Installers already create shortcuts - but often too many or in wrong/unwanted places. Or place stuff in the Startup-Folder. The function WshShell.SpecialFolders() does get the paths for the special folders know to the system, so this will always return the correct folder for any Windows version starting with Win95. Whoops, i overlooked that function. You're right - WshShell.SpecialFolders() is much saner than expanding registry entries. I sure hope it might become a candidate for integration in WPKG - would save calling extra scripts :) Best Regards Heiko Helmle- wpkg-users mailing list archives http://lists.wpkg.org/pipermail/wpkg-users/ ___ wpkg-users mailing list wpkg-users@lists.wpkg.org http://lists.wpkg.org/mailman/listinfo/wpkg-users
