MPKG's

I pretty much never push out packages just for those types of reasons. Just build a dmg and include the pref, all problems solved.

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Eric Winkelhake | Technology Services ? Mundocom | Re:Sources IT
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I just finished creating a package with Composer. I just installed the
Office 11.5 update and the XML Converter and turned it into a DMG. Seems
to be working fine.

Chad

I actually just deployed the new Office Converter using Microsoft's mpkg. I didn't use Casper as this was a one machine deal, but it was as simple as scp'ing the mpkg over the the machine, then ssh'ing into the box and using the installer command.

The installer command has been invaluable, hooray to apple for making command line versions of most of their apps. Just run "sudo installer -pkg <path to pkg or mpkg> -target <target drive>", so my command becomes 'sudo installer -pkg Open XML File Format Converter 1.0.mpkg -target /' and everything works great. You can also add the '-verbose' option if you feel safer seeing more output.

A few notes: This particular installer will quit all Office apps without prompting you when run from the command line, be sure you save everything first. Parts of the installer that require user intervention (i.e. EULA) are skipped, but make sure you run this as sudo if it needs root privileges.

This has been working great for me, even wrote a script that will run this for any pkg's or mpkg's in the current directory to ease in deployment, but if you've got Casper, I would think that it would be more streamlined to just use composer and make a dmg package.

Hope that helps,

Ryan Harter
UW - Stevens Point
Workstation Developer
715.346.2716
Ryan.Harter at uwsp.edu

Tim,

What Chad and Eric have stated I agree with. I attempted to use MPKGs, but they often won't work being pushed for various reasons. If you need to do other things like EULA supression, serialization, etc. then you are almost always better off building a DMG with Composer. That's what I've resorted to with Office 2008. I am able to use some of the additional bundled software MPKGs with like Final Cut Studio for additional audio content and motion content etc, but you need to make sure you check the logs if the MPKG fails to install...it may not appear to have failed up front, but check the logs. This was happening with the previous Office 2008 (service pack 1) 12.1.0 update that was an MPKG. I thought, great...I can push out the pre-made MPKG, but no such luck.

Good luck!

Craig

i look for a command line version for the installer with a silent flag.