KACE Product Support

I'm definitely open to that possibility down the road. I think it is important to get things established first. AppDeploy is more of an admin crowd than a developer crowd so I'm curious how much interest there would be. Anyone else think going open source (maybe some time next year) would be interesting, please chime in!

Open Source sounds like a great idea, that would speed up the development for this tool and future feature if any.
It would be nice if the post- and pre-snapshot could be a bit faster.

ORIGINAL: AngelD

Open Source sounds like a great idea, that would speed up the development for this tool and future feature if any.


Future features? This program hardly has any features, actually it lacks a bit of almost everything. [>:]
COM tables, component keypaths, File shortfilenames, version and language, registry keys in correct components, why is there a limit on the number of shortcuts and so on... [8|] I know it is a lot of work (been there, done that) and it is just an alpha release so we should give the guys some time.

Patrick,

I don't think Bob's intention was to create another costly repackaging tool but a basic one with just file, registry, ini-files and shortcuts.
By "future feature" I was referring more to support for enabling COM-advertising such as populating the Class, ProgId, TypeLib... tables and other needs a repackager would want in this kind of tool.
No need to invent the wheel again but a basic snapshot tool that supports the MSI database format is good enuf as there already exists free editing tools such as InstEd just to pick one.

True, but except for the COMtables, the things I mentioned should be in there I think.

First, thank you for taking the time to provide feedback.

The AppDeploy Repackager has very little features by design. As AngelD said the intention here is a simple repackager (not a replacement to a suite costing thousands). The snapshot process should account for any changes-- including those to Class, ProdID and TypeLib. Any features deemed necessary to help it work in more situations will be seriously considered.

The best way to see a new feature added is to find an application that does not work with the Repackager as is so there is a "problem" to address. Adding some of what you suggest may serve to over complicate what is intended to be a simple tool. For example, setting component keypaths I think is beyond the scope of a simple repackager. The intention here is to keep it simple and as functional as possible.

im more than happy to put some effort into developing the tool.

both AngelD and I have been messing around with MSI editors (the limited time for both of us is the problem here).

I have numberous little bits and pieces to read MSI content into GUI formats I have been working in just for kicks.

Excellent, it is nice to know there is interst!

The tool looks a bit like it is written in C#. Is that correct? I'm a C/assembler/web developer, but C# is similar enough to languages most web developers are familiar with, if that is what you're using. I would be glad to help out if I could. And I imagine some other developers might, as well.

bkelly, what are your current thoughts around making this more of a open source community project? I mentioned this when you started the project, and I think you might be underestimating the impact it could have ..

I'm open to the idea, but to be honest I am more of a web developer/scripter and don't know much about managing an open source project-- while it would be nice, I'm sure the project wouldn't manage itself.