Preface

This document describes the functionality provided by the Windows plugin.

Refer to Deployit Reference Manual for background information on Deployit and deployment concepts.

Overview

The Windows plugin is a Deployit plugin that adds the capability to perform common Windows configuration and deployment tasks.

Features

• Installs and uninstalls MSI files.
• Imports Windows registry files.
• Creates and destroys Windows services.
• Creates and destroys Windows shares.

Requirements

• Deployit requirements:
  • Deployit version 3.8.4 or higher.
• Infrastructural requirements:
  • Administrative access to the target Windows machine.
  • PowerShell 2.0 must be installed on the target machine.

Release Notes

3.9.0

• Added support for importing Windows registry files.
• Removed support for windows.ServiceMsi.
• Improvements made/bugs fixed:
  • Changed default of stopStartOnNoop on windows.Service to true.
  • DEPLOYITPB-4398 - Don't start or stop services that have startupType set to Disabled.

3.8.1

• Improvements made/bugs fixed:
  • DEPLOYITPB-4260/DEPLOYITPB-4268 - Now uninstalling MSI's by running them with the /x flag (instead of invoking the uninstall method on the application object retrieved with Get-WmiObject).

3.8.0

• Added support for Windows services and shares.
• Renamed to Windows plugin.

3.7.0

• Initial release of the MSI plugin.

Usage in deployment packages

The plugin works with the standard deployment package DAR format. Please see the Packaging Manual for more details about the DAR format and the ways to compose one. The following is a sample deployit-manifest.xml file that includes a few of the deployables provided by the Windows plugin:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<udm.DeploymentPackage application="Windows" version="1.0">
  <deployables>
    <windows.Msi name="Apache HTTPD" file="httpd-2.2.22-win32-x86-no_ssl.msi" />
    <windows.RegFile name="My service registry key" file="myservice.reg" />
    <windows.ServiceSpec name="My service">
      <binaryPathName>C:\Program Files\Common Services\myservice.exe</binaryPathName>
      <dependsOn>
        <value>tcpip</value>
      </dependsOn>
    </windows.ServiceSpec>
    <windows.ShareSpec name="My share">
      <targetPath>C:\Users\deployit\Public</targetPath>
    </windows.ShareSpec>
  </deployables>
</udm.DeploymentPackage>

Caveats

• Windows registry files are imported when a package containing them is deployed or updated. However, no specific logic for removal of the registry keys is included. Ensure that your registry file removes the complete key used by your application before adding the values. See Microsoft Knowledge Base article #310516 for how to do this in a Windows registry file.
• Ensure services.msc is not open when services are being deployed.
  • Otherwise the deployment may hang and/or the machine might need to be rebooted for the changes to take effect.
• Ensure regedit.exe is not open when registry files are being imported.
  • Otherwise the deployment may hang and/or the machine might need to be rebooted for the changes to take effect.

Using the deployables and deployeds

Deployable vs. Container table

The following table describes which deployable/container combinations are possible:

Deployed Actions Table

The following table describes the effect a deployed has on its container:

Extending the Windows plugin

The Windows plugin has been written upon the foundations provided by the PowerShell plugin, which is a standard part of the Deployit server distribution. Please refer to the documentation of the PowerShell plugin for details on how to extend PowerShell-based plugins.