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Application Deploy

Agent Procedures > Application Deploy

  • This page applies to the following product: On Premises

The Application Deploy page is a wizard tool that creates an agent procedure to distribute vendor installation packages, typically setup.exe. The wizard walks you through a step by step process resulting in an agent procedure you can schedule, to deploy an application to any managed machine.

Deploying Software Vendor's Install Packages

Most vendors provide either a single file when downloaded from the web or set of files when distributed on a CD. Executing the installer file, typically named setup.exe or abc.msi, installs the vendor's application on any operating system.

The Application Deploy wizard takes you though an interview process to determine the type of installer and automatically generates a procedure to deploy install vendor packages.

The VSA provides a small utility to automatically identify all supported installer types. Download and run kInstId.exe to automatically identify the installer type.

Note: See Creating Silent Installs to ensure vendor installation packages don't pause for user input during installation.

Step 1: How do you want to deploy the application?

The wizard generated procedure tells the managed machine where to get the application installation file to execute. The Application Deploy wizard asks you in step 1 if you want to Send the installer from the VSA server to the remote machine and execute it locally or Execute the installer from a file share on the same LAN as the remote machine.

Pushing the application installation file to each machine from the VSA may be bandwidth intensive. If you are installing to multiple machines on a LAN no internet bandwidth is used to push out the application installation file. Each machine on the LAN can execute the application installation file directly from a common file share.

Step 2: Select the application install file or Specify the UNC path to the installer stored on the same LAN as the remote machine.

If Send the installer from the VSA server to the remote machine and execute it locally was selected, then the installer file must be on the VSA server. Select the file from the drop-down list.

Note: If the installer file does not appear in the list then it is not on the VSA server. Click the here link to upload the file to the server.

If Execute the installer from a file share on the same LAN as the remote machine was selected, then the installer file must be on the remote file share prior to running the application deploy procedure. The specified path to the file must be in UNC format such as \\computername\dir\.

Note: If the file is not already on the remote file share, you can put it there via FTP. Click the here link to start FTP.

Step 3: What kind of installer is this?

The wizard need to know what kind of installer was used by your software vendor to create the install package. The VSA provides a small utility to automatically identify all supported installer types. Download and run kInstId.exe to automatically identify the installer type. Supported installer types are:

  • Windows Installer (MSI files)
  • Wise Installer
  • Installshield - Package For The Web
  • Installshield - Multiple Files
  • Other

Step 4: Name the agent procedure.

Enter a name for the new agent procedure you can run to install the application.

Step 5: Reboot the machine after installing the application.

Check this box to automatically reboot the managed machine after running the install. The default setting is to not reboot.

Click the Create button.

A new agent procedure is created. Use Agent Procedure > Schedule / Create to display the new agent procedure in the folder tree, under your private folder user name. You can run this new agent procedure to install the application to any managed machine.