1. When people ask you what does AdminStudio do, what do you tell them?

Before launching into an answer, I start by asking a few questions about their desktop environment, how they currently prepare software applications for deployment across their network, and whether or not they have an installation packaging standard. People who are unfamiliar with AdminStudio tell me it can be difficult to migrate applications to Windows Installer, tedious to test applications to determine deployment readiness, and time consuming to search for the offending DLL or registry setting causing an error. Others talk about wasted time struggling to encourage business requestors to provide full details on how an application should be packaged, or how challenging it can be to maintain an accurate view of the packaging team's project status. We find a common ground recognizing that aspects of repackaging remain an art and not a science and agree that good tools can make a significant difference-tools properly designed to ease their packaging workload, simplify application conflict resolution, automate testing for deployment certification, enforce corporate standards, and help manage the entire process across even distributed packaging teams.

Then I ask how many of the packages they need to prepare for deployment were originally packaged with an InstallShield setup authoring tool. The answer is always "the vast majority." That's when I inquire if they realize that only InstallShield has the ability to retrieve the important data stored in the proprietary format of those packages, define the setup intent that often cannot be determined through simple repackaging, and thereby ease the migration to MSI.

Our focus at InstallShield is understanding the challenges that systems administrators and desktop management teams face with software lifecycle management. Once my questioner realizes that we truly understand these challenges, I explain that AdminStudio is the most complete and reliable enterprise software lifecycle management solution available, enabling systems administrators and desktop management teams to successfully migrate to Windows Installer and manage the entire lifecycle of every enterprise application. AdminStudio combines the flexibility of a Web-based portal for data and workflow management with a suite of powerful repackaging, customization, and conflict-solving tools to produce a complete, end-to-end application management solution based on industry best practices. With AdminStudio, enterprises can easily prepare any application for seamless deployment into every business unit on their network and reduce the total cost of ownership of every desktop in their organization.

2. Can you provide a quick history of AdminStudio for us?

AdminStudio evolved from InstallShield's core expertise in understanding the Windows Installer service and engine. As they began to adopt MSI as a packaging standard, many of our IT customers in Fortune 100 companies requested software tools that would enable them to customize MSI applications and repackage their applications into the MSI format. They recognized that most of the packages they were deploying were authored using an InstallShield tool and they knew we would be able to resolve their challenges. Working with these customers over the last several years, we've seen AdminStudio continually evolve. Initially it was a simple snapshot repackaging tool bundled with our MSI authoring tool, InstallShield Developer, and a transform creation tool called Tuner. In versions 2 through 3.5 we added a set of conflict resolution tools, legacy package import, and introduced the next generation of repackaging technology with InstallMonitor, a tool that watches the changes a setup makes to the target machine and only captures the actual changes and any changes you wish to make manually post install. Our recent April release of AdminStudio, version 5, raises the bar once again with additional distribution wizards for Tivoli, VMware™ integration for clean build captures, SmartScan™, Setup Intent, automated pre-deployment quality assurance testing with QualityMonitor™, full import of every MSI table, conflict persistence, and a full workflow management server that allows you keep all of the package data and history in a single Application Catalog database. Clearly, packaging for the enterprise has evolved from simple repackaging to complete application lifecycle management.

3. What would you say is AdminStudio's strongest feature?

Without question, ConflictSolver is the strongest feature because it ensures you always deploy conflict-free, reliable software packages. Only AdminStudio lets you test every table in every MSI package for conflicts against any or all applications and operating systems in your enterprise. You can group your applications by business unit - like Marketing, Sales, and Accounting - and automatically test them against each other, merge modules, Transform pairs, and the exact OS image to which they will be deployed. AdminStudio automatically identifies all conflicts, and either instantly corrects them through customizable resolution policies or lets you fix them using Tuner or InstallShield Developer. The resulting corrections can then be resolved in an MST or within the MSI itself. Plus, the Rules Wizard enables you to create your own custom business rules to ensure no package violates corporate standards. And this tool, like the rest of AdminStudio, is both flexible and extremely easy to use.

4. What do you believe to be the most underrated or misunderstood feature?

QualityMonitor is the most underrated feature in AdminStudio. For example, prior to deploying a Windows Installer-based application, you need to test it in the targeted deployment environment to ensure that it works as expected. However, it is often not possible to test each piece of an application's functionality due to the complexity of the application and/or its interface. Behind the scenes there may be dozens if not hundreds of attempts to access files, registry keys, or services. Errors may only become apparent in rare and isolated circumstances. One major source of failure is when the target environment is restricted in some way, such as in a locked down environment. In this case, there may be prohibitions on certain COM activation or registry access, which ultimately prevents an application from working correctly.

QualityMonitor applies a series of built-in tests to installed Windows Installer-based applications to ensure that the product has been installed correctly and all key functionality works in the installed environment. Some of the primary areas checked include COM data, file extensions, Help files, services, and shortcuts. When failures do occur, QualityMonitor helps identify where the problems occur and directs you to the solutions. For lockdown and runtime testing, you are provided with a list of all the available shortcuts and executables for the specific application. QualityMonitor will then test for any API calls against the OS and information about the executable is listed under the Runtime Checks node. This information, grouped under Files, Registry Entries, and Folders views, allows you to see failures in the application execution.

5. What do you believe makes AdminStudio stand out when compared to other products?

Our attention to detail makes AdminStudio unique in the marketplace. Features like the Post-Capture inclusion/exclusion of files and settings within the Repackager, enhanced by the InstallMonitor capabilities, significantly simplify what can be a very time consuming process. You can now selectively include or exclude captured data. For example, if you inadvertently captured some unnecessary data from a temporary folder, or if the setup installed unwanted desktop shortcuts, you could exclude them when building the package. If you later determine the data you excluded is actually required for a package to work properly, you only need to go back to Repackager and check those files for inclusion - not recapture the entire setup again.

Two other examples would be the SmartScan and Setup Intent capabilities which take advantage of InstallShield's exclusive understanding of scripted setups authored using InstallShield Professional. The SmartScan Wizard is designed to scan original, InstallShield Professional 5.x and later media for setup information that may not have been captured during repackaging. This primarily involves OS-dependent and language-dependent files that may be included in header files. Ultimately, this makes the installation more portable without having to run the package against multiple platforms or configurations.

The Setup Intent Wizard allows you to scan a setup and identify files that may not have been captured during repackaging-effectively recognizing the installation's intent for these files. Although an installation may have intended to install certain files, these files sometimes may not be installed-often because the files already exist on the target machine (either as the same version or a newer version). These files, although not installed or updated, are needed for the product to execute properly when the setup is run on a system that does not already have these files, so the wizard will now include them in your repackaging project This is just one other step we've taken to ensure that you can confidently deploy packages prepared with AdminStudio.

6. What do you see in the future for AdminStudio?

The future of AdminStudio is a continued focus on providing Systems Administrators with comprehensive and easy to use pre-deployment tools that will make them more productive. My job is to talk every day with IT personnel responsible for desktop management and discover what issues they are encountering. You can be certain that solutions to resolve these issues will show up in forthcoming releases of AdminStudio. Systems Administrators will reap significant benefits as InstallShield continues to leverage our influence in the software developer marketplace to create synergies between the ISV packages and the tools IT organizations use for software lifecycle management. More transparent packages, open formats, and further automation are certainly in the future. I encourage your readers to contact me directly at alainb@installshield.com with their feature requests and I will ensure that we provide an appropriate response.

See more about AdminStudio here at AppDeploy.com