The focus of this review will be on those new features introduced in this latest version 6.0. For a closer look at AdminStudio and its features that existed prior to this new release see the AdminStudio 5.5 review. This is a major upgrade to AdminStudio and with that comes an impressive list of new features. Of these new features, I’ll be discussing those I feel are most important:

• InstallScript MSI Support - AdminStudio 6.0 can now convert an InstallScript MSI setup to a Basic MSI setup with InstallScript support so it can be managed more effectively in an enterprise environment.

• Process Assistant - provides a high-level interface providing a guided approach to testing and conflict-resolving packages.

• Predeployment Testing - allows you to determine if an MSI package will succeed or fail when it is installed in production, in order to help reduce the likelihood of deployment failures.

• SMS Web Console – Blurring the line between package creation and deployment administration even further, AdminStudio now offers its own Web interface version of the SMS Administrator Console.

Finally, I will close with some final thoughts including some information about other new features of AdminStudio in less detail. 

InstallScript MSI Support
 
Just the word “InstallScript” can send Windows Administrators into a frenzy. Vendors employing InstallScript MSI installation projects (a hybrid of the two installation technologies) typically deliver setup.exe wrappers to bootstrap the installation of InstallScript which must be used to call the Windows Installer setup. While command line support for these wrapped installations is robust, those that wish to assign the included MSI setup using Active Directory are prevented from doing so. Creating a transform, detecting conflicts, and patching and upgrading are all much more difficult issues to deal with when working with an InstallScript MSI installation. While there are some work-arounds to the issues, InstallShield now comes to the rescue with a solution of its own.

 
Predeployment Testing
 
Predeployment testing is now available in AdminStudio, which provides an effective means of testing the deployment of a package prior to releasing it with whatever distribution mechanism you have in place. You provide it a source MSI (the one you want to test) and a target MSI file names (the new test version of the package you want to create). The test version of the package performs the following silent tests against target systems and then reports the results to a web service installed on an IIS web server.

• System Search – checks to ensure any configured search conditions are met

• Launch Conditions – checks to ensure any configured launch conditions are met

• Directory Creation Permissions – ensures necessary permission exists to create directories

• File Read Permissions – ensures necessary permission exists to read files

• File Write Permissions – ensures necessary permission exists to write to files

• Disk Space – ensures necessary disk space is available

• Registry Permissions – ensures necessary permission exists to modify the registry

• .NET Framework – ensures the .NET Framework is installed if necessary

• File Association – ensures any specified file associations can be enforced

• File Conflicts – ensures no conflicts exist with current files on the target system

• Registry Conflicts – ensures no conflicts exist with current registry entries on the target system