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PCINSTAL
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1994-09-08
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98 lines
PC-Install
by Ryan N. Yetter
I recently tried out a version of PC-Install from 20/20
Software. This utility allows someone without any prior programming
experience to write a customized installation utility while
maintaining enough functionality that even a knowledgeable user
would find it very useful.
Say you are asked by your boss to update a program on every
computer in the office. The only problem is that you also have to
edit the settings in the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT file. If you
were to do this at just ten computers it could take nearly an hour.
That's assuming that everyone needed the same files and everyone had
the program in the same directory. If this is not the case, then it
could take you four or five hours to accomplish this task. Here is
where PC-Install comes in. In about 15 minutes you can write an
installation routine which will update the CONFIG.SYS file and the
AUTOEXEC.BAT file and install the correct files to the correct
directory. If you are having the user install it, the installation
routine will also display a message telling them what the disk is
for and how to install it.
Now, let's say you are in charge of computer maintenance at
a larger company with a thousand computers at 20 locations across
the country. You need a program to perform a specific task and a
programming firm was hired at several hundred dollars an hour to
write it. You could spend the extra money on having an installation
utility written to install it, or you could write one yourself
saving the company a great deal of money. In the same fifteen
minutes used in the last example, you could write a utility to
install the program on every one of those computers at each of those
20 locations. Since most larger companies would want it to look
nice it might take 30 minutes to fully customize the colors and get
the background you want. This would still save your company a great
deal of money!
You can see that PC-Install would be useful in a variety of
scenarios especially with its many other options. You can add a
customized title to the screen in any size font that will fit. In
the DOS version you can set ten different screen sections to 8
different colors with varying brightness. In the Windows version
you can change the color of three sections of the screen to the same
16 colors in the DOS version. You can add selection screens where
the end-user can select certain options to control the installation.
Custom messages can be added into certain parts of the routine and
README files can be displayed as part of the process. It can even
edit your Windows initialization file or assign the program to a
workgroup with a certain icon. Probably the best features are that
it will check for a minimum CPU and minimum disk space requirement
so the program will not load onto a computer that doesn't meet the
criteria.
If you have a program that has files on several disks, and
you would like to cut down on the number of distribution disks that
are required, you can purchase the optional PC-Shrink utility
program. This full featured file compression program will compress
one file on one disk or several files across many disks. This will
allow you to reduce the number of disks needed for distribution and
easily incorporate the compressed files into the installation
routine. By just changing a few commands you can switch an
installation routine for uncompressed files to one for compressed
files. If you have been using PKZip or LHA to compress your
distribution disks you won't have to switch over. It can
incorporate either of these programs into the process, although
there can be some confusion to end users when using PKZip's disk
spanning ability, depending on how the installation is set up. I
would have to recommend using PC-Shrink for use with PC-Install, the
reason being that they were designed to work together.
PC-Install does lack in certain areas, however. While it
can add lines to the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, it can't
check to see if these lines are already there. The same is true for
adding a directory to the PATH statement. While the program can
check for a minimum CPU requirement, it can't detect Pentium
processors. It can display README files, but not print them. Due
to these facts, I wouldn't say that it is the perfect program to
fill the need for an installation utility, especially with
technology changing so rapidly. The company does state that they
plan to continue upgrading every year so hopefully they will fix
these minor shortcomings by the next release. While the program may
not offer what a professional developer is looking for, I'd
recommend the program to businesses for file distribution.
20/20 Software is definitely on the rise in the computer
world through partnerships with Microrim Software, Borland, and
Microsoft; so I think their name will be heard quite a bit in the
future.
20/20 Software Inc.
8196 SW Hall Blvd.
Suite 200
Beaverton, OR 97005
(503) 520-0504
(503) 520-9118 Fax
Compuserve at 76662,3072