Q: Why do MIT installers require an active TCP/IP connection?

A. The installers do not actually contain the application binaries. During the course of the installation the necessary binaries will be downloaded to the computer and installed. This has several advantages for MIT and the user community, as well as some disadvantages.

Since several of the applictions that MIT makes available to its user community are licensed from commercial vendors we often have to limit their distribution or have an audit trail of how many copies of the software have been installed. By seperating the application binaries from the installer a single copy of the installer can be used to install the software on many machines but we will still be able to determine how many machines onto which the software was installed.

The installers themseleves are smaller. This means that they will usually fit onto a single diskette even if the files to be installed require many megabytes.

Many users have indicated that they do not want all of the applications that we currently distribute or they do not have the hard disk space to install applications that they do not need. This system should evolve into a system that lets users install exactly the software that they need in a timely and convienient manner.

Many users do not need an entire distribution of an application. Some of our installers will only download the files that are required for use on the particular machine where the installer is being run. This means that the time needed to download the installer and download the files needed to complete the installation will be less than the time required to download a traditional monolithic installer.

The disadvantage is that MIT users will not be able to install these applications on machines which do not have TCP/IP support. These installers will also be frustrating to users that want to copy the installer while on campus with a high speed network connection and then take the installer home to avoid low modem speeds on their home computers.

We hope to address this limitation in the future.

Common Features of the Windows installers:

The installers are created using the WISE 5.0 installation software. Installation programs created by WISE offer three command line options. These options are:

1. /M Manual Mode The /M option runs the installation in manual mode. You will be prompted for the locations of your Windows, System, and Temp directories. You can specify any directories, if they do not exist they will be created. Any changes to INI files will be saved into the Windows directory that you specify. With this option you can have the installtion file run without installing any files into your real Windows and System directory. You can then manually copy the files to their proper destination. This option can also be useful for clients that have unique Windows installations.
2. /X Extract Mode If you run the installation executable with the /X option, list of the files contained will be displayed. You can select some of the files to extract them from the installation. If you place a directory name after the /X option all of the files in the installation will be extracted into the specified directory.
3. /Z Extract Mode The /Z option performs the same function as the /X option except that Windows is exited after the extraction.