Global MSI Software

The creation of an installation program that installs all the files, registry settings and system configurations needed for a particular piece of software.

This is the conversion of existing installation routines to the new Microsoft Installer Technologies. Using tools such as Wise Installer, WinInstall, InstallShield or other tools legacy setup routines behaviour can be "Captured" and developed into an .MSI for the Windows Installer service. The installation package can then be tailored to a particular customer's needs.

Windows Installer is an operating system service that ships with Microsoft® Windows Server™ 2003 family, Windows® XP, Windows 2000, and Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me). The installer is also provided as a service pack to Windows NT® version 4.0, Windows 98, and Windows 95. It's responsible for installing, repairing and removing software. Windows Installer is an installation and configuration service that reduces the total cost of ownership.

Benefits of Windows Installer include:

	Proper management of shared resources
	Improved methods for enforcement of installation rules
	On-demand installation of entire applications or application components
	A much cleaner removal of software
	Better rollback for failed installation of applications.

An .MSI contains all the information that Windows® Installer needs to install (or uninstall) an application. Each installation package includes an .MSI file that contains information about files, registry keys and other parts of the software to be installed in a set sequence and optimised for installation performance.

Many setup routines historically were a black box where the administrator or installation engineer would not know what was happening at the time of installation. With .MSI technology the system administrator has total control of all installation and Uninstall routines due to transactional install.

	Centralised Deployment of packaged applications will reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO), Reducing support costs
	Standardisation
	Single click install
	Installation on demand
	Self healing applications
	Transactional install and uninstall
	Installation on locked down environment
	Reduced user downtime
	Remote Deployment of managed applications
	Conflict Management and application coexistence

Conflict management has been introduced to most mainstream packaging tools to ensure that all installation packaged components are checked against each other. This makes sure that potentially incompatible versions of files do not conflict with what is currently in the customers' software portfolio and the clients new Core Operating System.

With this in mind Conflict Management minimises the chance that one installation will conflict with anything already out in the environment, therefore saving on support for applications that break and inturn reducing the total cost of ownership.

Remote deployment has always been possible for applications, the difference being with MSI the install can be totally automated without user intervention. This takes out the need for decisions being made at the time of install by either the user or the engineer on the ground.

Group Policy (IntelliMirror), SMS, Tivoli, and many other deployment systems provide support for Windows Installer (MSI) set-up routines. Even if not natively supported, any deployment tool capable if executing a simple batch file will be able to deploy Windows Installer packages.