Setting the order of Hotfixes & Updates

[Gantlett]

Dear Nuhi

First of all, you have created an INCREDIBLE little program (which isn't really little, actually) - for that I thank you deeply!

I've discovered nLite about a year ago and it has saved me SO MUCH TROUBLE over the HUNDREDS of installations I've done so far.

So thanks again!

Now, for my question, regarding the "Hotfixes & Update Packs" section:

nLite does not "understand" automatically in which order the updates need to be slipstreamed.

Windows Update, on the contrary, "knows" the order in which updates should be installed.

If I have a huge list of updates for nLite to process, some of the updates might not integrate because their order is incorrect. This happend to me, for instance, in a Win 2000 Pro installation: For some odd reason, IE6 will not integrate into the installation even though its installer and all of its updates are in nLite's list. I've tried sorting all the updates by date, but it just won't work (although now all the other hotfixes & updates successfully integrate)... nLite does not produce any error message regarding any of the IE6 updates, but the resulting installation's IE version is 5. A manual installation of IE 6 is required to get Windows Update up and running.

Is there a chance that one day nLite will simply decide automatically, or actually know, which updates should be installed in which order, just like Windows Update does?

Thanks again,

Gant.

Edited December 5, 2006 by Gantlett

[rado354]

Never got this problem.

Are you sure you integrate only the required updates?

Edited December 4, 2006 by rado354

[Gantlett]

Mostly.

Some are not required. But that's the beauty of it, isn't it?

Going back to my main question, why does nLite allow to manually set the order of the installation (of Hotfixes & Updates)? What is the reason for this (I'm asking, not complaining... )? It creates room for error, and I believe I've made SOME kind of an error because changing the order of the installation definitely increases or decreases the amount of error messages nLite outputs.

Setting the order of the updates by release date (which is not always displayed correctly by nLite) results in an error-less integration. But the process of ordering all the updates by the correct release date is very time consuming: many updates have release dates which are displayed in different formats and some don't have a release date at all, so when you ask nLite to sort the updates by date, the resulting order is incorrect (release-date-wise). This forces you to investigate each update individually (those that have a date in a different format or that don't have a date at all) to find out its real release date, locate it back in the list and move it to its correct place...

Thanks.

Edited December 5, 2006 by Gantlett

[rado354]

why does nLite allow to manually set the order of the installation (of Hotfixes & Updates)? What is the reason for this (I'm asking, not complaining... )?

Let say you integrate .Net Framework and some applications that require .Net...

So you manually set the installation order: first the .net then all applications that require .net

That's just an example.

[Gantlett]

.Net Framework won't integrate for me at all - but that's another story and much less important now (so you don't have to bother yourself with it )...

What about the updates that do not have a release date (i.e., the ones that nLite doesn't display their dates) - do I have to worry about their order of installation?

BTW - about integrating IE6 - I just found this useful page which suggests that certain updates should not be integrated at all if IE6 is desired, so I'm removing the wrong ones and adding the IE6-only updates (still working on it...).

Edited December 5, 2006 by Gantlett

[zumbi9in]

Yes Gantlett, that sux, i have to order my updates manually too, it is a mess.

Why don´t they do something automatically, it is not that hard!

[Kiki Burgh]

these updates may be sorted according to the column headers ... the only downside to this though is that HF build dates are usually in different formats (either dd, mm, yy or mm, dd, yy) ... but just like what was already posted by rado, a very good example would be those that require a certain update to come 1st before others