Vista application deployment

Embed UAC data in the application's executable file and run as a normal user. This is the default setting unless you use ClickOnce. This setting supports the usual manner in which Visual Studio operates on Windows Vista, with the generation of both an internal and an external manifest using AsInvoker. This generates only the external manifest by using the information in app. This approach is also known as virtualization. Use this option for compatibility with existing applications from earlier versions of Visual Studio.

Installation Method Determine how to install the application automatically. Whether the application is a core or supplemental application, you achieve the best results by completely automating the installation. You cannot automate the installation of some legacy applications; you must repackage them.

If so, the best time to choose a repackaging technology is while planning deployment. Subject Matter Experts You will not have the in-depth understanding of all applications in the organization necessary to repackage them all.

Therefore, for each application, identify a subject matter expert SME who can help you make important decisions. A good SME is not necessarily a highly technical person. A good SME is the person most familiar with an application, its history in the organization, how the organization uses it, where to find the media, and so on.

You can capture the desired configuration in transforms that you create for Windows Installer—based applications or within packages you create when repackaging legacy applications. Configuring legacy applications is usually as easy as importing Registration Entries. BDD includes templates for documenting and prioritizing the application inventory. The file Inventory Template. The file Assessment Template provides a template for recording the planned configuration and installation method of each application.

ACT 5. With ACT 5. You can also create your own categories for organizing the application inventory. After creating an application inventory, the next step is to prioritize the list.

Prioritizing the application inventory is not a task that you perform unilaterally. Instead, you will want to involve other team members, management, and user representatives in the review of priorities. The priority levels you choose to use might include the following:. High High-priority applications are most likely mission-critical or core applications. These are applications that are pervasive in the organization or are complex and must be addressed first.

Examples of high-priority applications include virus scanners, management agents, Microsoft Office, and so on. Medium Medium-priority applications are nice to have but not essential.

These are applications that are not as pervasive or complex as high-priority applications. For example, a custom mailing-list program might be a medium-priority application because you can replicate the functionality in another application. If you foresee no major consequences, the application is a medium priority.

Low Low-priority applications are applications that deserve no attention in the process. Examples of low-priority applications are: duplicate applications, applications that users have brought from home and installed themselves, and applications that are no longer in use.

When prioritizing an application as low, record the reason for that status in case you must defend the decision later. Prioritizing the application list helps you focus on the applications in an orderly fashion. Within each priority, you can also rank applications by order of importance. Ranking applications in an organization using thousands of applications is a foreboding task, however. Instead, you might want to rank only the high-priority applications or repeat the prioritization process with only the high-priority applications.

After prioritizing the application list, you must categorize each high- and medium-priority application. You can drop the low-priority applications from the list, as you have no intention of addressing them. The following categories help you determine the best way to deploy an application:. Core Application A core application is an application common to most of the computers in the organization, or one that must be available the first time you start a computer after installing the operating system.

This is because different parts of the setup are reading settings from different passes. This means that depending on what type of Windows 7 setup you are doing, you need to populate different sections in the answer file. The premium tool for editing the unattend.

The settings that you have to define also depends on if you are using setup. I will cover all these scenarios. Please also notice that you need different answers files depending on what platform x86 and x64 you are deploying. An answer file for x86 cannot be used for x64 and vice versa. To have setup. The most common location is a removable media like a USB stick. In the sample files for this article you will find a minimal, but fully automated answer file for this scenario.

The overall process is the following:. In the sample file for this scenario, I have taken the sample file from Scenario 1 and just removed the WinPE pass settings.

I could have used the exact same file, for any settings in WinPE pass are simple skipped when using ImageX, but I prefer to have as clean answer files as possible. You can also prebake the answer file into your image when running sysprep. The sample file for this scenario are the same as for scenario 2. Or by storing the unattend. If we wanted we could also add settings for the Generalize pass for this scenario if we wanted.

That section is being read when executing sysprep. In Windows 7 the Administrator account is disabled by default.