is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring.

Whilst delivering a training course on MSI application packaging, this quote from Alexander Pope sprang to mind. I recalled a situation where a little knowledge of MSI packaging had proved to be dangerous indeed. The desktop support team at a global law firm had been tasked with packaging applications (how hard can it be? Open up Wise, do a snapshot, compile the MSI and then deploy it. My pet monkey could do it). The support guys enthusiastically packaged about 100 applications (It is easy! They launch ok. Nothing appears to have broken. No time for testing, let’s get them out there). And out they went, on at least 200 desktops.

Things were going swimmingly for the first few weeks. And then….disaster struck. The helpdesk calls were flying in at an unprecedented rate. “I can’t log in”, “My PC doesn’t work”, “I NEED to check my email” – and slightly more colourful uttering’s from a multitude of irate lawyers. The culprit was a package for a proxy client, which installed fine but on uninstall deleted a stack of CurrentControlSet registry keys and some Winsock DLLs, basically corrupting the IP stack on hundreds of PCs. Oops.

The Desktop Manager realised that this “MSI business” was slightly more complex than he had imagined. Having felt the heat, he decided to bring in some expertise to resolve the immediate issues and organised training for his staff.

When we at Camwood talk about Packaging Best Practices, Component Management, ICE Validation, Stringent Quality Review Processes and Defined Standards, we are not employing technical jargon in order to “dress up” a relatively simple task so that we can charge more money for it. Disasters do happen with badly packaged MSIs. Not always as large-scale and destructive as the one mentioned above, but embarrassing nonetheless. We can offer you the benefit of our expertise through workshop-based training courses. The courses will not just impart information; you can get that from Google. The objective is to deliver knowledge and understanding. Knowledge can be regarded as the application of information and understanding is the synthesis of knowledge, the “why” as opposed to the “how”.

And if you are seeking Wisdom? This is the fruit of experience and for this; we suggest you use our application consultancy service. Why learn from your mistakes when we’ve spent years learning from ours?