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Welcome to FLEXnet AdminStudio ZENworks Edition. FLEXnet AdminStudio provides systems administrators with the fastest solution for preparing reliable applications and patches for enterprise deployment, offering a complete suite of automated packaging, customization, conflict resolution, and quality assurance tools. FLEXnet AdminStudio provides enterprises with a structured, repeatable application preparation process that provides consistent, trouble-free software deployments every time.
Whether your organization is migrating its legacy software to the Windows Installer format or looking to standardize desktop configurations and enforce corporate standards enterprise-wide, FLEXnet AdminStudio is the only solution you need. With FLEXnet AdminStudio, you get a network of reliable and manageable applications that increase employee productivity and decrease management costs.
The recommended system configuration for a machine running FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5 is:
| Processor | 500 MHz or greater | |
| RAM | 256 MB or greater (512 MB preferred) | |
| Hard Disk | 1.1 GB | |
| Display | Designed for XGA at 1024 x 768 resolution or higher | |
| Operating System | Windows 2000, Windows XP, or Windows Server. Predeployment Test requires Microsoft IIS 5 or later. | |
| Browser | Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or later | |
| Privileges | Administrative privileges on the system |
The recommended system configuration for a database server to store FLEXnet AdminStudio application catalogs is:
| Processor | 1 GHz or greater | |
| RAM | 512 MB or greater (1 GB preferred) | |
| Hard Disk Space | 80GB or greater | |
| Operating System | Windows 2000 Server or Advanced Server (SP3) or Windows 2003 Server | |
| Database Software | FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5 supports SQL Server, Oracle, and Microsoft Access databases: SQL Server 7 (SP4) or 2000 (SP3a), installed with case-insensitive dictionary sort order and ISO-8859-1 character set (use sp_helpsort T-SQL command for more information) Oracle 8i or later |
This Web server hosts the Security Console, Report Center, and Job Manager.
| Processor | 1 GHz or greater | |
| RAM | 512 MB or greater (1 GB preferred) | |
| Hard Disk Space | 30 GB or greater | |
| Operating System | Windows 2000 Server or Advanced Server (SP3) or Windows 2003 Server | |
| IIS | IIS 5.0 or IIS 6.0 | |
| .NET | .NET Framework 1.1 (including ASP.NET 1.1 registered with IIS) | |
| MSXML | MSXML 4.0 | |
| Running on a Domain Controller | If running on a domain controller, you will have to implement one of the procedures described in the Microsoft Developer Network topic Running ASP.NET on a Domain Controller (available at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/wss/wss/_exch2k_running_asp_net_on_a_dc.asp). |
This machine stores the Software Repository files.
| Processor | 512 MHz or greater | |
| RAM | 512 MB or greater | |
| Hard Disk Space | 60 GB or greater | |
| Operating System | Windows 2000 Server or Advanced Server (SP3) or Windows 2003 Server |
FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5 ZENworks Edition includes the following components:
FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5 Standard Edition includes the following components:
FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5 Professional Edition includes all of the Standard Edition components plus the following additional components:
FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5 Enterprise Edition includes all of the Professional Edition components plus the following additional components:
In Repackager, the performance of the Installation Monitoring repackaging method has been improved and it is now the default Repackaging Method.
When building a Windows Installer package from a Repackager project, you can also choose to automatically build an isolated version of that repackaged setup.
You can use the FLEXnet AdminStudio Directory Monitoring feature to monitor a directory hierarchy for package changes. In Version 7.5, Job Manager has been enhanced so that the packages that you import or reimport as part of a Directory Monitoring Job Step are now available for selection as source packages when defining operations in subsequent Job Steps. This enhancement allows you to automate common business processes—such as validation or conflict detection—over all packages as they are added to the Application Catalog by the Job Manager.
FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5 includes InstallShield Editor, which has the following new InstallShield 11.5 Professional Edition features:
AdminStudio 7.5 InstallShield Editor is based upon InstallShield 11.5 Professional Edition, but it has the following differences and additional features:
For a complete list of new features in InstallShield 11.5, see the InstallShield 11.5 Release Notes
When using Repackager to build a Windows Installer package, you can now choose to create an .msi file with a single external compressed CAB file.
FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5 now supports authenticated proxies for activation.
FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5 now supports silent activation using public Windows Installer properties.
For a description of FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5's support for Windows Vista, see the following Knowledge Base Article: FLEXnet AdminStudio 7.5 Support for Windows Vista.
To help Macrovision improve the quality, reliability and performance of our software and services, you can now choose to join the AdminStudio Customer Experience Improvement Program (CEIP). If you choose to participate in this program, Macrovision will collect anonymous information about how you use AdminStudio to help us identify trends and usage patterns.
Report Center provides a centralized view of all of the information regarding the packages in your Application Catalog. The Report Center offers a new catalog-level search tool which enables you to generate detailed, customizable reports on packages with particular characteristics. Because Report Center is a Web application, it can be easily accessed by a geographically dispersed work force without requiring any software installation or data transfer. These reports can be exported to Excel format for sharing and archiving.
Job Manager enables you to make conflict testing more efficient by scheduling common tasks – such as package import, validation, and conflict elimination – to run automatically. These processes can be built to run at preset times (when system availability is highest or certain data is available), and no human intervention is required.
You can use the FLEXnet AdminStudio Enterprise Server Security Console to manage access rights and to keep your software packaging process secure. The Security Console enables you to integrate with your LDAP database – including Microsoft Active Directory and Novell eDirectory databases – to establish individual or group access rights for FLEXnet AdminStudio users. Authentication involves dynamic communication with the database, so any changes to the database are automatically reflected during AdminStudio Enterprise Server login. Access to FLEXnet AdminStudio can also be granted on a feature-by-feature level for even tighter control.
A Windows Installer package is made up of many files that are executed when the setup is run. However, only the .msi file is imported into the Application Catalog database. To safeguard these additional files against alteration or being misplaced, you can choose to manage these files using the Software Repository. When a package is managed within the Software Repository, the Windows Installer file and all of its associated files and subfolders are imported into a subfolder of the Software Repository location identified for that Application Catalog. You can maintain multiple versions of packages, and use package check out/check in to update packages
Patch Impact Manager, which is now included with Enterprise Edition, makes predeployment patch testing efficient by automatically identifying – without deploying the patch – which applications in your environment it will impact. IT can then focus the patch testing against those applications. Patch Impact Manager also helps you locate Microsoft patches, view their descriptions and content, and import those you need into the Application Catalog.
InstallShield Editor is now integrated with the Application Catalog, enabling packages to be checked out for modification and checked back in as a replacement version or as a new version.
The new Application Manager interface provides a single view into all the data in the Application Catalog, and includes a summary dashboard showing high-level statistics, the list of packages most recently modified, and recent history of catalog management activity.
Enhancements include augmented Application Conflict Evaluation (ACE) rules, improved file conflict detection, and support for terminal services environments. Additionally, results of conflict tests are grouped in the summary view, with a drill down option for additional detail.
In QualityMonitor, you can now create your own templates for user-defined test suites, which helps you standardize your predeployment package quality assurance testing. In addition, exclusion lists can be constructed to make the results of runtime tests more focused.
Predeployment Test now includes better conflict testing, easier conflict elimination, the ability to override testing results, and conflict error correlation with ACEs.
Application packages can be tested for compatibility with terminal services environments, and automatically updated if necessary.
Repackaged applications can be designed to display dialogs in many languages. Text for standard dialogs and error messages exists in 33 languages.
In Repackager, you can use the command line to convert multiple ZENworks .axt and .aot files to Windows Installer packages at the same time.
InstallShield Editor gives you additional flexibility in customizing MSI packages, with MSI 3.0 support, IIS 6.0 support and an enhanced IIS user interface, new objects and merge modules, and more.
FLEXnet AdminStudio can now inject license tracking and management capabilities into applications. When complemented with Macrovision’s FLEXnet Manager (sold separately), this enables you to cut software and administrative costs by identifying and eliminating unused licenses, implementing usage-based licensing, and centralizing the overall management of your licenses.
Repackager provides improved accessibility to the Exclusion Editor.