Sunday, December 2, 2012

Software Installation

Nexwrx can assist with installations of software upgrades, operating system upgrades and help with installing software that maybe used across a network.  

Common operations performed during software installations include:

  • Making sure that required system requirements are present
  • Checking for existing versions of the software
  • Creating or updating program files and folders
  • Adding configuration data such as configuration files, Windows registry entries or environment variables
  • Making the software accessible to user, for instance by creating links, shortcuts or bookmarks
  • Configuring components that run automatically, such as daemons or Windows services
  • Performing product activation

Types of Software Installation

  • Attended Installation: This is the most common form of installation. An installation process usually needs a user who attends it to make choices, such as accepting or declining an end-user license agreement (EULA), specifying preferences such as the installation location, supplying passwords or assisting in product activation. In graphical environments, installers that offer a wizard-based interface are common. Attended installers may ask users to help mitigate the errors. For instance, if the disk in which the computer program is be installed was full, the installer may ask the user to specify another target path.
  • Silent Installation: Installation that does not display messages or windows during its progress. "Silent installation" is not the same as "unattended installation". All silent installations are unattended but not all unattended installations are silent. The reason behind a silent installation may be convenience or subterfuge. 
  • Unattended installation: Installation that is performed without user interaction during its progress or with no user present at all. An unattended installation either does not require the user to supply anything or has received all necessary input prior to the start of installation. 
  • Headless Installation: Installation performed without using a computer monitor connected. In attended forms of headless installation, another machine connects to the target machine (for instance, via a local area network) and takes over the display output. Since a headless installation does not need a user at the location of the target computer, unattended headless installers may be used to install a computer software on multiple machines at the same time.
  • Scheduled or Automated Installation: An installation process that runs on a preset time or when a predefined condition transpires, as opposed to an installation process that starts explicitly on a user's command. For instance, a system administrator willing to install a later version of a computer program that is being used can schedule that installation to occur when that program is not running. An operating system may automatically install a device driver for a device that the user connects. 
  • Clean installation: A clean installation is one that is done in the absence of any interfering elements such as old versions of the computer program being installed or leftovers from a previous installation. In particular, the clean installation of an operating system is an installation in which the target disk partition is erased before installation. Since the interfering elements are absent, a clean installation may succeed where an unclean installation may fail or may take significantly longer.
  • Network installation: An installation of a program from a shared network resource. This may simply be a copy of the original media but software publishers which offer site licenses for institutional customers may provide a version intended for installation over a network.

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