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| <META NAME="AUTHOR" CONTENT="Dirk Völzke"> |
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| <H1 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Setup network installation</H1> |
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">abstract</H2> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">multi user operating systems become |
| more important today so it would be good if our setup program would |
| offer better support for these operating systems.</P> |
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Installation models</H2> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">For better support of the multi user |
| systems we will differentiate between three installation models. |
| These models are the single user installation, the multi user |
| installation and the network installation.</P> |
| <H6 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Single user installation ( Windows |
| 98/ME )</H6> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">In a single user installation the |
| product will be installed in one single step on the computer of the |
| user. All necessary system configuration ( like writing something |
| into the registry, installing fonts, creating program groups, etc. ) |
| will be done for this single user. After the installation the product |
| is ready for use.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">When someone else uses the product on |
| this computer, he will use the same (user) configuration.</P> |
| <H6 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Multi user installation (Windows NT, |
| 2000, XP, UNIX)</H6> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">The system administrator installs the |
| product into a common location on the computer which can be accessed |
| by every user. During this installation, most of the system |
| configuration will be done like font installation or file types |
| registration or the creation of program groups and links to the |
| program files etc. for all users.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Before a user can use the product for |
| the first time, he has to run the user installation to copy all the |
| user specific data into a user specific folder. When he tries to |
| start the product without running the user installation first, the |
| user installation will be started by the product automatically. When |
| the user installation has finished, the product will be started |
| again.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">The difference to the single user |
| installation is that different users of the same computer share the |
| same product installation but use their own user data.</P> |
| <H6 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Network installation (all OS, setup |
| – net)</H6> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">The system administrator installs the |
| complete product on a network volume that is accessible for all |
| users. No system specific or user specific installation will be done. |
| All files and information necessary for user installation (e.g. fonts |
| ) will be stored beside the product so they are available later for |
| the user installation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">A user who wants to use the product |
| has to start the setup program in the network installation to install |
| the user specific data on his workstation. This will install the |
| fonts, register the file types, etc. After this installation the |
| user can use the product. When the user tries to start the product |
| without running the user installation first, the user installation |
| will be started by the product automatically. When the user |
| installation has finished, the product will be started again.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">In difference to the multi user |
| installation the network installation doesn't make any system |
| configuration nor installs any system files on the user's computer. |
| This will be done later when the user runs the user installation.</P> |
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Typical layout of an installation</H2> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">We will always use the network |
| installation as a base for all three kinds of installation. The |
| network installation will be done using the default directories |
| appropriate for the operating system. Optional you can choose another |
| directory if you want. |
| </P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><B>Windows NT / 2000 / XP</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Courier, monospace"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 9pt"><program |
| files>\<product name>\...</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><B>UNIX / Linux</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Courier, monospace"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 9pt">/opt/<product |
| name></FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">The user installation uses the system |
| default directories, too. These directories are:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><B>Windows NT / 2000 / XP</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Courier, monospace"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 9pt"><document |
| and settings>\<user>\<local settings>\Sun |
| Microsystems\<product name>\...</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><B>UNIX / Linux</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Courier, monospace"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 9pt">$home/.<product |
| name></FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">When performing a single user |
| installation, both installations will be done into the same base |
| directory the user chooses. This could look like:</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><B>Windows NT / 2000 / XP</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><FONT FACE="Courier, monospace"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 9pt"><program |
| files>\<product name>\...<BR><program files>\<product |
| name>\user\...</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><B>UNIX / Linux</B></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 9pt"><FONT FACE="Courier, monospace">/$home/<product |
| name></FONT></FONT><BR><FONT SIZE=2 STYLE="font-size: 9pt"><FONT FACE="Courier, monospace">/$home/<product |
| name>/user</FONT></FONT></P> |
| <H6 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Starting the product after a |
| multiuser or network installation</H6> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">The product has to check on startup, |
| whether the user has already done a user installation. To do this |
| the product has to read its version key from the <B>bootstrap.ini</B><SPAN STYLE="font-weight: medium"> |
| file which should reside next to the executable of the product. In |
| the next step the product looks for this key in the file </SPAN><B>sversion.ini |
| / .sversionrc</B><SPAN STYLE="font-weight: medium"> ( this file is |
| located in the <documents and settings>\<user>\<application |
| data> directory for Windows and in the $home directory for UNIX / |
| Linux ). There a three possible scenarios.</SPAN></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><I>a.) The key couldn't be found in |
| the sversion.ini or there is no sversion.ini</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-style: normal">When the |
| key couldn't be found then probably the user hasn't done the user |
| installation. Therefor the product launches the user installation and |
| quits. The setup launches the product after the successful user |
| installation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><I>b) The path behind the key is |
| invalid</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-style: normal">When the |
| key could be found in both file but the path behind the key in the |
| sversion.ini file is wrong, then something probably went wrong, |
| therefor the setup program should be started in repair mode. So the |
| product launches the setup, quits and after the successful repair the |
| setup launches the product again.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western"><I>c) The path behind the key is |
| valid</I></P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-style: normal">The |
| product launches as usual.</P> |
| <H6 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Starting the setup program in a |
| multi user or network installation</H6> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">When the setup is started inside a |
| multi user or network installation, the setup can't decide |
| automatically whether it should be used to modify or repair the |
| current installation or if it is used to perform a user installation |
| or modify or repair a user installation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">When the setup finds the version key |
| in the sversion.ini it will present the user the option to repair or |
| deinstall or modify the user installation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">When the setup can't find the version |
| key it will present the user the option to do a user installation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">To repair or modify or deinstall the |
| multi user / network installation the setup has to be called with the |
| option <B>-net</B><SPAN STYLE="font-weight: medium">. For better |
| access to this option the setup should install an additional link ( |
| or program shortcut ) in the multi user / network installation that |
| starts the setup with this option. To prevent<SPAN LANG="en-US"> |
| unauthorized </SPAN>access to this installation, the setup could ask |
| for a password the system administrator provides during installation |
| and that could be stored MD5 encoded in the installation database.</SPAN></P> |
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Problems</H2> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">For a network or a multi user |
| installation privileged access rights might be required.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">The user installation of a network |
| installation might require privileged rights for the user's |
| workstation, too, for the installation of fonts etc.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">When you try to repair an |
| installation, the setup doesn't know, whether it should repair the |
| user or the network ( or multi user ) installation.</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">When the multi user / network |
| installation has changed, it might be necessary to redo the user |
| installation.</P> |
| <H2 LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Questions</H2> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western">Choose the installation method |
| automatically? E.g. use single user installation for Windows 98/ME |
| and the multi user installation for all other Windows versions or use |
| always the multi user installation ( this uses a little bit more |
| space on your harddrive for the user installation data? Use the |
| network installation when installing on UNIX or Linux?</P> |
| <P LANG="en-US" CLASS="western" STYLE="font-weight: medium">We prefer |
| always doing a multi user / network installation with an immediately |
| following user installation when necessary.</P> |
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