Methods to tailor an installation package

You can control which IBM® i Access for Windows features your users can install, as well as other settings that customize the behavior of the installation. You can use transforms or command line parameters to do this.

Transforms

Windows Installer provides administrators with a mechanism called a transform to modify the default behavior of the installer when deploying an installation package. Transforms let administrators restrict which features can be installed by users, preset public properties, change the default destination location for the application, and other customizations.

Transforms do not actually modify the source image. A transform is a file containing a series of modifications that are applied to the base MSI database, cwbinstall.msi, at installation time. The MSI database is not altered when the transform is applied. Instead, the modifications contained in the transform take place during installation time, overriding what is in the MSI database. The transform file is cached on the PC and it gets applied again every time the base MSI package is invoked. A transform cannot be uninstalled separately from the application. Transforms have a file extension of .MST

Note: You should only apply transforms to cwbinstall.msi. Transforming MSI packages that are shipped with IBM i Access for Windows other than cwbinstall.msi is not supported.

To create a Transform you can use free software or an MSI Packaging Tool. See Tools available for creating transforms and Creating transforms with Orca for details.

Command line parameters

You can customize the behavior of the installation by specifying command line parameters. The setup.ini file included with the source image lets you predefine command line parameters that will be used by setup.exe. This avoids the need for end users to enter the right parameters at a prompt.

Tailored Installation Image wizard

In previous releases the Tailored Installation Image wizard was used to exclude components from an installation image, and then the tailored installation image was distributed to users. This functionality is no longer available so you should use transforms to achieve the functionality provided by Tailored Installation wizard.