Software Deployment

WPS is more or less WIS with bells on (e.g. Conflict Management) so, if you want a relatively painless transition, then WPS is the route of least resistance. There is a H U G E caveat, however.

From where I'm sitting, Symantec grabbed Altiris for one reason and one reason only: Altiris Deployment System. The Wise family came along by default. Under Symantec's stewardship (and Altiris's before, to be fair), the Wise product family has been left to wilt. Their record of keeping up with technology is - to put it kindly - woeful. The straw which broke the camel's back for me was that v7 SP4 was launched as v8. Consequently, even though I prefer WPS to IS in day-to-day use, I have been advising clients using it to plan a move to IS instead of to WPS v8.

Thanks for the information. Its quite a leap for us to use IS but given that there are regular updates I think it would be wise to move over (no pun intended!)

We probably will go for Premier edition given the language support - but from first glance at the product I am already missing some of the wizard type features like Firewall exception configuration :(

Paul

I am using WPS v8 as a followup of WPS v7 and I love it. Ok, it costs some money, but the support from Symantec is nice and it works every time for me packaging our software.

As I said, I prefer WPS to IS (I would hesitate to say that I love it, though). The issue is the foot-dragging, snail's pace in keeping up with technology. Can you remember how long it took for them to add 64-bit support, for example? Shameful...utterly shameful...

I'd like to mention that, having made the switch from Wise to InstallShield myself a number of years ago, it wasn't that painful [;)]. I can understand you'll miss a number of custom Wise Wizards and a certain way of working, but in the end they're both shells on top of the same Windows Installer tech. Tbh, the only things I miss in Installshield from time to time are WiseScript (and there I have VBS) and what I seem to remember as easier recompiles of MSIs with different media options. But that's about it...

I'd say Paul, that, definitely given the current outlook of WPS, it's time to bite the bullet and switch. Maybe get someone in with IS experience for a few months, to ease the transition. If that's an option.

Be sure to share your experiences [:)]

PJ