1. Introduction

The Collector MSI package embeds all Collector components and allows their installation, upgrade and uninstallation. This chapter presents this installer and the ways to configure the different Collector elements.

1.1. Requirements

The following facts hold:

• The Collector MSI package relies on Windows installer 3.0, which is shipped with all versions of Windows supported by the present product. Basic knowledge of this technology is assumed.
• Installation of files and registry entries required for the proper execution of Collector implies access to computer location only writable by Administrator users. Consequently, the MSI package must be run under a user that has permissions to perform such operations or the installation tool must be able to defer its execution to a process running with elevated privileges.

When it comes to MSI packages handling, Microsoft Orca, the reference MSI database editor, becomes of great use. This chapter presents various manipulations that take benefits of this tool.

1.2. MSI and Windows Edition

Due to some MSI limitations, different MSI package should be used on different Windows edition. There are 3 different MSI packages corresponding to the following 3 sets of Windows editions:

1. Windows 2000 32 bits,
2. Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, Windows server 2003, Windows server 2008 32 bits,
3. Windows Vista and Windows 7, Windows server 2008 64 bits.

1.3. Versioning Convention

The version number advertised by the MSI package is slightly different from NEXThink Collector version. For instance, the MSI version 3.2.050 is equal to Collector version 3.2.0.50.

2. Installing NEXThink Collector

The Collector MSI package can be used for installing Collector in two modes: unattended and attended operations.

2.1. Attended Installation Mode

Attended operations displays a User Interface (UI) that lets the user choose the main Collector parameters and components to be installed. To start with, double-click on the NEXThink Collector MSI file (NEXThink_Collector.msi), the Welcome Screen is displayed. Note that the Collector version can be seen in the Welcome Screen.

The next window allows the user to enter the IP address or DNS name and port number of the Engine. You can also choose to install the Control Panel extension.

The next window allows to the installation.

After the MSI has successfully installed the Collector (and the Control Panel extension if selected), you may be prompted to reboot the computer if you are upgrading the Collector. Choose No if you plan to restart later the computer

2.2. Collector Installation using MSI Transforms

The unattended mode requires the user to provide the Collector configuration at launch-time. Those parameters are expressed by the mean of Windows Installer public properties. An unattended installation is performed by typing the following command in a command-line interface :

msiexec.exe /q[INSTALL_MODE] /i NEXThink_Collector_3.msi …

Where [INSTALL_MODE] is either:

• n: no UI.
• b: basic UI.
• r: reduced UI.

None of those installation modes require entering the driver configuration parameters. However, reduced and basic UI may prompt the user for rebooting his machine, whereas no UI will automatically reboot the machine (see below for knowing how to supersede this behavior using the REBOOT public property).

2.3. Configuration

2.3.1. Explicit configuration

In unattended installation mode, it is necessary to provide all parameters for any installation or upgrade of Collector. Parameters are not saved from one installation to another when performing an upgrade.

2.3.2. Main parameters

Parameters are expressed by setting appropriate Windows Installer public properties. MSI parameters can be split in two different purposes:

• Features selection parameters: specifying such a parameter will tell the installer whether it should install a specific Collector component or not.
  • Collector driver: this component is always installed as it is the core element of Collector.

  • Collector Control Panel extension: this component is installed if the CPL_INSTALL property is set to 1.

• Feature configuration parameters: these parameters are used for configuring the different installed Collector components. Some of these parameters are mandatory and if they are missing, the installation procedure will fail. All possible configuration options are listed in XXX (List of parameters). However, the main settings that one may want to use are the following:

  • DRV_IP: this property must be set to the Engine IP address or DNS name. This is a mandatory parameter.

  • DRV_PORT: this property must be set to the Engine port number. This is a mandatory parameter.

  • DRV_ACTIVATE_DMP: this property specifies whether the target system should be configured for generating memory dumps in case of STOP message (Blue Screen). Its value can be 0 (disabled), 1 (full memory dump), 2 (kernel memory dump) and 3 (memory minidump). The recommended value is 2 (kernel memory dump). Default is 0.

    • This is a non-reversible setting: it will not be rolled back to its initial value after uninstalling Collector.
    • The MSI package will not change the system setting for a less verbose memory dump setting (e.g. if current setting is to generate full memory dumps, it will not configure the system for generating minidump).

The Collector MSI features many other advanced parameters. A complete list can be found in the Collector MSI Reference Guide.

The rest of this section explains how to pass these parameters to the installer in unattended execution mode. Passing Command-line Properties Passing parameters on the command line is simply done by appending the appropriate public properties to the calling msiexec execution:

msiexec.exe /qn /i NEXThink_Collector.msi DRV_IP=192.168.0.133 DRV_PORT=999 CPL_INSTALL=1

Using MSI Transforms An MSI transform defines how to install an MSI package. Passing parameters using MSI transforms is less straightforward than passing them on the command line, but this however the recommended method, because:

• Parameters edition is less prone to errors as less recurrent typing is required.
• MSI transforms can be used across different versions of Collector MSI packages, and the initial configuration will therefore be used in subsequent updates.
• Maintenance installations (reparations) are able to get initial parameters from MSI transforms, whereas they are not able to recover launch-time command-line properties. For creating an MSI transform reflecting a Collector configuration, the following steps must be performed.
• Edit the Collector MSI package with Microsoft Orca

  • Please refer to this link Microsoft Orca to know how to get Microsoft Orca.

• Create a new Transform:

• Open the Property table in the left pane:

• Edit the Property to suit the installation configuration, adding and/or modifying existing rows:

• Generate a transform and save the the resulting .mst file in a safe location :

An MSI transform is then by typing the following command in a DOS prompt:

msiexec.exe /qn /i NEXThink_Collector.msi TRANSFORMS=Collector_config.mst

2.3.3. Maintenance Installations Consideration

Maintenance installations (also called reparation) do reinstall the features that have been initially installed. However, the parameters that have been used for configuring the different Collector components are not saved at installation-time. Therefore, such parameters are recovered by two possible means, in this order of precedence:

• If an MSI transform has been used at installation time, the configuration parameters specified in this transform will be applied at reparation-time. This is one more argument for using MSI transforms.
• Otherwise, the parameters are fetched from the registry, meaning that any change to the Collector configuration occurring after initial installation-time will be re-applied at reparation-time. However, if all features configuration parameters are passed on the MSI reparation command line, their values will be used.

2.3.4. Reconfiguration Consideration

For reconfiguring Collector (e.g. change the Engine IP or the UDP port), two choices are left to the deployment manager:

• Upgrade the existing installation using a more recent Collector MSI package, applying the wanted changes (this is the recommended method).
• Apply a script edtiing the registry Collector entries. If an MSI transform was used at installation time, maintenance installations will overwrite the Collector reconfiguration (see previous section).

2.3.5. Computer Restart

Any installation, upgrade or uninstallation of Collector 3 requires the user to restart his computer. Windows Installer will either prompt the user for rebooting or not, depending on the User Interface level. The following table summarizes its behavior:

For preventing the MSI package to automatically restart the computer, it is necessary to set the REBOOT public property to ReallySuppress. This property can be either set on the msiexec.exe command-line or in an MSI transform, as it was previously explained for Collector-specific properties.

2.3.6. Log MSI Installation

For getting results about installation, a msiexec selector can be activated to write the installation log in a file.

msiexec.exe /qn /i NEXThink_Collector.msi /L*v log.txt

2.3.7. MSI Package Usage Examples

This section gives some examples of execution of the Collector MSI package with their textual description counterparts.

• Unattended (no UI) installation of Collector driver and Collector Control Panel extension. The IP address of the Engine is 192.168.0.17 and its port is 999. Memory dumps are activated on the target machine (kernel memory dump). No automatic restart of the computer. If an older version of any NEXThink driver is already installed on the system, it will be uninstalled (automatic upgrade). Parameters are passed on the command-line.

  • msiexec.exe /qn /i NEXThink_Collector.msi CPL_INSTALL=1 DRV_IP=192.168.0.17 DRV_ACTIVATE_DMP=2 REBOOT=ReallySuppress

• Same test case, but parameters are saved in an MSI transform:

  • msiexec.exe /qn /i NEXThink_Collector.msi TRANSFORMS=Collector_config.mst

• Unattended (no UI) uninstallation of all Collector 3 components. The machine is automatically rebooted (default behavior).

  • msiexec.exe /qn /x NEXThink_Collector.msi

• Unattended reparation of a previous installation of Collector 3. The machine is not automatically rebooted.

  • msiexec.exe /qn /f NEXThink_Collector.msi REBOOT=ReallySuppress

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