Windows Expert/Windows Expert.iso/network/winstl20.zip/RELNOTES.TXT

Text File | 1992-04-19 | 7KB | 124 lines

                      WINSTALL 2.0 Release Notes

WINSTALL was previously called N.A.I., or Network Application Installer.
WINSTALL 2.0 is a major upgrade from N.A.I., providing significant
enhancements and improvements in many areas.  Once again, Aleph Systems
offers thanks to all those users and evaluators who suggested improvements.

If you have developed a WINAPPS.LST file and application .DAT files with
an earlier release of N.A.I., you will find that the WINSTALL programs
will work perfectly with them as they are.  At the same time, you will find
that WINSTALL offers many additional capabilities and improved reliability.
Major differences from the last general release (N.A.I. 1.5) are explained
below.


Major WINSTALL improvements for release 2.0:
-------------------------------------------------------

1.  WINSTALL now supports up to five environment variables ($ENVAR1$,
    $ENVAR2$, $ENVAR3$, $ENVAR4$, and $ENVAR5$), which can be configured
    using the SET USER-SPECIFIC VARIABLES button in WINSTADM.EXE.

    If one or more variables are configured, then WINSTALL will automatically
    substitute them where needed by any application .DAT file or where called
    for in the log.  If any of the specified environment variables are not
    present in a user's environment, then WINSTALL will prompt the user for
    them when the first application is installed or removed, remembering the
    responses the user provides until WINSTALL is exited, and substituting
    them whenever the corresponding $ENVAR is encountered in a .DAT file or
    log operation.

    For example, if you wanted to place a file in the F:\username directory
    where the user's network username is stored in an environment variable
    called "NETUSER," you could configure the first environment variable as
    "NETUSER,"  and specify F:\$ENVAR1$ as the destination directory for the
    file you want to place in his directory.

    When WINSTALL runs, it will then examine the user's environment to extract
    the information stored as the NETUSER environment variable and will then
    substitute that information where needed.  If a user running WINSTALL does
    not have a NETUSER variable set in his environment, then WINSTALL will
    prompt him for the information it needs before performing any installation
    or removal process.

2.  WINSTALL now supports up to three application-specific variables
    ($APPVAR1$, $APPVAR2$, and $APPVAR3$), which can be configured using the
    new APPLICATION-SPECIFIC VARIABLES button in WINSTADM.EXE, within the
    ADD/MODIFY function.

    If one or more variables are configured, then WINSTALL will prompt
    the end user for them when the application is installed or removed,
    substituting it whenever $APPVAR1$ is encountered in a .DAT file during
    the operation, either in a pathname or within the file modifications.

    For example, if you wanted to place a file in the F:\docdir
    directory, where "docdir" means the end user's word processing document
    directory, you could configure the first user-specific variable to call
    for "Word Processing Document Directory,"  and specify F:\$APPVAR1$ as
    the destination directory for the file you want to place in his directory.

    When running WINSTALL, each network user will then be prompted to enter his
    "Word Processing Document Directory."  If a user provides NAI with "DOCS"
    as his document directory, WINSTALL will place the file in the F:\DOCS
    directory, creating the directory in the process, if necessary.

3.  Release 2.0 now permits modification of the AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS
    files, as well as one other additional ASCII file of your choice per
    application .DAT file, in the same fashion as it enables modification of
    WIN.INI and SYSTEM.INI.

4.  WINSTALL now has the ability to keep a complete network log of all user
    and administrator activity in a file of your choice.  You have a number of
    options as to what to log with each entry, but this log can help to show
    who has installed and removed what, on what PC, and when, and it can also
    aid in troubleshooting any WINSTALL-related problems which may arise.

5.  WINSTALL now permits the display of a custom message before and/or after
    any installation and/or removal process.  You specify a short text file to
    display in the PRE/POST OPTIONS area of the ADD/MODIFY application .DAT
    file function of WINSTADM.EXE.

6.  You have the opportunity to extend WINSTALL by automatically calling
    an external program (a Windows or DOS application, even a batch file) at
    the end of any installation or removal operation.  The program to call is
    specified within the PRE/POST OPTIONS area of the ADD/MODIFY application
    .DAT file function of WINSTADM.EXE.

7.  The file copying operation has been improved in three ways. First, WINSTALL
    now properly dates copied files with the time and date of the source file,
    rather than with the time and date of the copy operation (this thanks to
    DISKSTAT.DLL, by Art Krumsee).  Second, WINSTALL provides 4 options for
    handling a situation where the file to be created already exists.  These
    options are configurable in the RUNTIME OPTIONS section of WINSTADM.EXE.
    Finally, the speed of the copy operation has been greatly increased.  This
    will be most noticeable in the copying of large files, for example, when
    installing an application which is to run from the local drive, rather
    than from a network drive.

8.  The handling of WIN.INI additions has been modified so that the [Windows]
    and [Fonts] sections are now both treated as special sections (as the
    [OLE] and [Embedding] sections have been all along.  This special
    treatment allows an application to be deleted without removing entire
    shared sections.  In addition, WINSTALL now recognizes the RUN= and LOAD=
    lines as special lines, adding and removing only the specified information
    and retaining whatever was already present on these lines.

9.  During a file copy operation, WINSTALL has always created any specified
    directories if they did not already exist and, during a remove operation,
    WINSTALL removes those directories if they are empty.  These directory
    creation and removal functions have been extended to the Windows 3.1
    Working Directory, so that if you specify a working directory on the icons
    screen, WINSTALL will create it at install time if it does not already
    exist and will remove it if it is empty when the application is removed.

10. The stability and reliability of both programs has been greatly increased,
    with more and more detailed error checking and warnings.

Please let us know of any problems you encounter with WINSTALL 2.0.  We can
be reached at [phone], by mail at 7319 Willow Avenue, Takoma Park, MD
20912, and on CompuServe at 71371,635.  We can't fix the problems we don't
know about.

                           Thanks for looking at WINSTALL!