Automatic installation rev-eng utility
Shachar Shemesh
wine-devel at shemesh.biz
Mon Mar 14 14:09:54 CST 2005
Hi all,
I said this in a reply in one of the threads (the one about Windows
registry), and got zero reply. I'm bringing the subject up again here.
Back in 1996 (and until around 2000) I was project manager for a project
called "GTFormat". This was a project used by the late Packard Bell, as
well as NEC in Japan, to put the programs bundled with the machines on
the hard disks shipped out to customers. The tools consist of a tool
that understands what the original installation did, a database to do
offline conflict resolution and other stuff, and a front end to perform
a (silent) installation of the result. I have written most of the code
in the last part of this project, and as I said before, managed the
entire thing. We also had a tool the generated files for the last part
directly from the first part, without going through the database.
Now, the tool was written when I was an employee of the company that
produced them (G.Tek Technologies, today called gteko), but I believe
that given enough persuasion I can get their approval to either freely
distribute or actually open source the detection and the installation
tool. I believe most of the distinguishing value of the tool as far as
Gteko is concerned is in the database, which is not relevant for Wine in
any way.
The tool is written mostly in C++ for Visual Studio 6. It may require
pulling out a single proprietary library (compression), but should not
pose a problem (zlib does a wonderful job, after all).
The question, therefor, is this. Should I try? The tool has proven
itself over a long period of time, and is fairly reliable (at least was
back at the time). It CAN solve some of our installer related problems.
Your opinions are welcome.
So, what say you?
Shachar
--
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd.
Have you backed up today's work? http://www.lingnu.com/backup.html
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