|
We were surprised and unhappy to learn from Sybase support that if you create an installer with the Deployment Wizard, then you can't simply apply downloaded EBFs. That's a real maintenance inconvenience, especially if we need to apply an EBF quickly. EBFs do a nice job of seeing what you've got installed and only updating what it needs to, so this is was a surprising limitation. Yes, there's are workarounds, but for us they aren't worth it. Combined with the fact that the Deployment Wizard doesn't support 64-bit installations (and we want to support both) means that we're backing away from the Deployment Wizard. Too bad. It's a nice feature. I hope that, in the future, these two limitations go away. FWIW, Dan K. |
|
While I generally agree with your suggestions: That's what I do to "upgrade" a client installed by a Deployment Wizard package: I apply the EBF to the "Source box" and then re-run the Deployment Wizard to create the same package as before (i.e. with the same set of options). (That has me lead to ask if those options could not be stored or if the Wizard could be scripted.) The new package can then be applied to upgrade the clients. I guess that the resulting package won't be much bigger than a full EBF (and possibly MSM packages might be even smaller - however, I have not used them so far.) (Sidenote: I have used this primarily to upgrade clients with just client interfaces.) Thanks for the feedback, Volker! Unfortunately, that approach doesn't work as well for us: - We need to deploy both 32-bit and 64-bit servers and clients, so Deployment Wizard isn't a good option. (We'd like one approach that works for both.) - We're a regulated medical device, so software we generate goes through a QA and release process. If we can't "just use" Sybase's EBF installer, we introduce a delay in using it to create our own revised installer. That's a problem on a rush EBF. So, we wish we could do an install that would let us just apply an EBF. (continued...) To make matters worse, the Silent Install option of the standard installer only does a full install, so that's not an option, either. It looks like our only option is to roll our won custom installer, and re-release it for each EBF. Gaaaaaaaaa! Well, with version 8 we have used the InstallShield Silent setup option to record our customized installation options (with setup.exe -r and -f1..., IIRC) that could then be replayed with setup.exe -s. I don't know if this is works with newer version but I think it should. - Would this be a solution? To add: I have used similar steps as described in the V 10 docs, cf. http://dcx.sybase.com/index.html#html/dbpgen10/pg-using-silent-install-deploy.html - but as said, I don't know if those apply to V 11.0.1 as well. Thanks, Volker. That is almost certainly what we will do. |
Look at SetupBuilder from Lindersoft. It is all script driven ... and you have far more control over the installation than any other installation system available. |
|
FWIW, starting with SA 12, the Deployment Wizard can now be used to create both 32-bit and 64-bit deployments for Windows. Cf. http://dcx.sybase.com/index.html#1200en/dbprogramming/deploy-s-4228164.html, particularly Jack Schueler's comment. |