Installing Claro software on a network

If you have purchased a site or multi-user licence then you probably want to install your Claro software on every machine or multiple machines. You can use your Claro CD to manually install onto each machine as required, but this is time-consuming. This page provides more information about how to install to a central network location or every machine in your network.

Claro users Microsoft Windows Installer for its software installations. This means that standard Microsoft installation techniques can be used:

Administrative Installation - lets you install from a network location.

However, our MSI files are passed to Windows Installer (msiexec.exe) with several commandline switches to allow us to configure them for the language and options of the end user. To find out what commandline options are used check out program.ini (e.g. WordReadPLUS.ini), described in Contents of the Installation CD below.

Contents of the Installation CD

You will need all the necessary files from the installation CD, even if installing over a network. Here is a description of the contents of the CD and what you need to do with them.

setup.exe

This displays the first user interface and calls all the program and voice installers in turn. It is the program run when an end user uses the CD. It uses information from setup.ini and program.ini (e.g. "WordReadPLUS.ini") to control the installation, including commandline arguments passed to msiexec.exe during installation. Finally, it triggers the User Access Control in Vista so that subsequent MSIs are installed with the correct administrative permissions.

program.ini, e.g. "WordReadPLUS.ini"

Each line of this file is passed to msiexec.exe by setup.exe, so it determines what is installed from the CD. You can therefore determine the settings for a single-user installation from it.

VISTA_EOAC_DESCRIPTION is the text that appears in Vista's Ease of Access Center as a description of the program.

Program folder, e.g. "ClaroReadPLUS"

The program folder contains the main files for installing the Claro program including:

The program installer MSI file, e.g. "CR_3.1_00.msi": This program is passed to msiexec.exe with the /I switch in CD installation by setup.exe.
An internationalisation transform MST file, e.g. "Swedish.mst": This is used to translate the installation process only, not the final installed program. If your end users are not going to run the installation program then it is not required, but you must remove it from the msiexec.exe commandline arguments defined in program.ini or else make sure it is present.
Configuration and installation files, e.g. "default.loc", "WordRead PLUS.exe": The other files in the Program folder are external to the MSI installer file but are necessary for it to install correctly. If you copy the MSI somewhere else to install from there (e.g. a network drive) then be sure to move these files as well.

Voices folder

The Voices folder contains all the RealSpeak and Acapela voice installer MSI files, called something like "RS05_00.msi" or "AC01_00.msi". These are self-contained MSIs so can be used directly. They require administrative privileges to install.

Example

Alice is a network adminstrator planning to install WordRead PLUS on her Swedish college network.

Alice gets the installation CD and opens "WordReadPLUS.ini".
The first line is:
```
WordReadPLUS\WP_3.1_00.msi TRANSFORMS=WordReadPLUS\Swedish.mst
	VISTA_EOAC_DESCRIPTION="Hjälper alla typer av PC-användare att skapa och läsa text."
```
This indicates that the WP_3.1_00.msi installer file is called with a transform (Swedish.mst) and a property is set (VISTA_EOAC_DESCRIPTION).
She copies WP_3.1_00.msi and all the files in the same folder to a network folder for installation. She does not need the transform (because the end users will not see the installation dialog, so it doesn't need translating) so she misses out Swedish.mst.
She checks the Voices folder and finds three MSIs, AC02_01.msi, RS05_01.msi and RS28_01.msi. She hovers the mouse over them to find out what they are: Acapela Swedish Erik, RealSpeak British Daniel, and RealSpeak Swedish Ingrid. She decides she only needs Daniel, so copies RS05_01.msi to the network folder.
Alice performs an adminstrative installation of WP_3.1_00.msi with the /a switch:
```
msiexec /a WP_3.1_00.msi
```
When prompted she selects a network folder, "\\Resources\Installers\WordReadPLUS" as the target for the adminstrative install, and a minute later the MSI and supporting files are all in the network folder ready to be installed on each machine in the network.
She does the same with the RealSpeak voice installer, installing to "\\Resources\Installers\RealSpeakDaniel".
Finally, she schedules each network machine to install from the administrative image overnight with administrative permissions with two lines in a batch file, using the /qn switch to remove any need for user intervention. The WP_3.1_00.msi installer still needs the VISTA_EOAC_DESCRIPTION property set for the three Vista machines on the network, so she adds that to the installation commandline passed to Windows Installer. (Newlines added for readability)
```
msiexec /i "\\Resources\Installers\WordReadPLUS\WP_3.1_00.msi" 
		VISTA_EOAC_DESCRIPTION="Hjälper alla typer av PC-användare att skapa och läsa text." /qn 
msiexec /i "\\Resources\Installers\RealSpeakDaniel\RS05_01.msi" /qn 
```