Options

Aug 14, 2017

This topic documents the toolbar on the Install Capture tab in the Import Applications screen and the other options that you can apply to applications during the Install Capture process. You use Install Capture to import applications for which an .msi, .appv, or .sft file is not available.

Install Capture tab toolbar

The toolbar on the Install Capture tab in the Import Applications screen provides the following options:

Use Auto Click. Select this check box if you want to use auto-clicker in the capture of the selected applications. (This applies only if the selected execution profile supports auto-clicker.) Clear this check box if you do not want to use auto-clicker for the selected applications. See Auto-Clicker for more information.

Note: If the Use Auto Click check box is disabled and you are wondering why, the answer depends on whether there are any applications in the list. When the list is empty, the check box is disabled if the default execution profile does not support auto-clicker or it does not contain the UseAutoClick replaceable. Once there are some applications in the list, the check box is disabled for an individual application when the execution profile selected for that application does not support auto-clicker or it does not contain the UseAutoClick replaceable. There’s more on execution profiles below.

Extract embedded MSIs. Some non-MSI installers contain embedded .msi files. Select this button to extract them. AppDNA then lists the extracted .msi file(s) with the application.

VM Configuration (drop-down box). Select the virtual machine configuration to use. This drop-down box lists the virtual machine configurations that have been set up in Install Capture Settings.

Configuration. Click to open Install Capture Settings.

Per-application options

You can set the following options separately for each application on the Install Capture tab in the Import Applications screen. If the options are not visible, click the + to the left of the application name to open the application’s options panel.

Install Capture options

Execution profile (first drop-down box) – This controls the tasks and resources that are run on the virtual machine during the capture process. When you select an execution profile from the list, AppDNA creates a copy of it for the current application. This copy has an asterisk (*) appended to the name. This means that you can customize the execution profile for this application only (see Customize below). To revert the changes back to the default, select the corresponding base execution profile (without an asterisk) from this drop-down list. This creates a fresh copy of the execution profile for the current application.

When you first install AppDNA, the default execution profile is called Snapshot. This has three main steps as follows:

  1. Before snapshot. Performs an analysis of the virtual machine’s state, including its complete file system and registry entries.
  2. Launch command. Runs the application’s non-MSI installer.
  3. After snapshot. Performs a second analysis of the virtual machine’s state, including its complete file system and registry entries.

The difference between the state of the virtual machine in the before and after snapshots represents the changes made by installing the application. The capture process uses this information to generate an .msi file for importing into AppDNA and then resets the state of the virtual machine back to how it was before the installation.

Other execution profiles are available and you can set a different execution profile as the default. (For a list of the execution profiles that come with AppDNA and how to activate them, see Execution profiles.)

Customize. Click to open the Edit Execution Profile dialog box, where you can edit the execution profile specifically for the current application. For example, you can set replaceables (placeholders) and edit options. If you subsequently want to revert to the default settings, simply select the original execution profile (without the asterisk) in the drop-down list.

Automatic. By default this check box is selected and the capture process is automated and, provided it is successful, does not require user interaction other than for the selection of manual install options if necessary. Clear this check box if the application has pre-requisites that need to be installed. Install Capture then runs in manual mode and you can control each step.

Load input file. This check box controls whether an .msi file extracted from the non-MSI installer or the .msi created by Install Capture is imported. Select this check box to load an .msi extracted from the installer. However, it is generally safer to use the generated .msi, because some installers contain more than one .msi file but only one can be loaded into AppDNA.

Quick Edit Parameters. This consists of a drop-down list and a text box. The values in the drop-down list are replaceables (placeholders) used in the execution profile. AppDNA automatically provides values for these replaceables and you do not normally need to edit them. However, sometimes you may want to add a switch to the install command so that the installation runs silently, for example. Any values entered for a replaceable in this box will override the corresponding value stored for that replaceable in the execution profile or virtual machine configuration.

The replaceables in the drop-down list depend on the execution profile, but typically include:

  • App:InstallCommand. The command that launches the application installation. When the application is managed through Active Directory or ConfigMgr, the value in the text box is derived from Active Directory or ConfigMgr. Otherwise, AppDNA creates a command of the form msiexec /i “input_file” for .msi files and “input_file” for other installation file types. You can specify any other command line options that the installer accepts. For example, you might want to add a silent switch, and for .msi files, you might want to specify transforms or logging options.
  • App:InstallDriveLetter. Only relevant when importing an application managed through Active Directory or ConfigMgr, this represents the mapped drive letter used to map the \\server\share portion of the installation directory to a drive letter.
  • App:InstallWrkDir. Only relevant when importing an application managed through Active Directory or ConfigMgr, this represents the working directory used by the installation command.
  • UseAutoClick. Set this to –use-autoclick if you want to run the capture with auto-clicker on. (This requires the execution profile to support auto-clicker.) Set this to an empty string if you want to turn auto-clicker off. See Auto-Clicker for more information. Any changes you make to this value will be lost if you change the execution profile in the drop-down box above.