Hello, friends! Sensational news from the Total Software Deployment team: TSD 3 has arrived! The number of changes made was so great and the improvements so evident that we decided to up the major product version.
We’re confident that you’ll be pleased with our efforts. After all, Total Software Deployment will now successfully handle the deployment of an even wider range of installers, the list of software supported for uninstallation was expanded by 50%, and the interface became more convenient and comprehensible. Just look at this impressive list of changes:
The full changelog can be found on the update screen in the program itself.
Several changes were made to Software editor’s Software passport. The first thing you’re bound to notice is a more convenient placement of elements in the passport. There are two new settings too.
The Installation context setting allows to select with what privileges the deployed software installer will be run. This setting is very important for the correct installation of programs that require a particular installation context, as well as for executing scripts. Select the local system installation context for programs that are installed for all users on the computer. This is the simplest and most common scenario, so we recommend to use this context most often. However, there are programs that can be installed only for the current user, and that’s the name of the context that you need to select in these cases. As you may have already guessed, someone must be logged into the system at the time of deployment for there to be a current user. The final option for installation context is network administrator. It’s intended solely for running scripts on the remote computer when they require access to remote network resources.
Setting up the Deployment verification file will allow you to save valuable time and make sure that the program was installed correctly without rescanning the target computers. Just specify the path to one of the files that must be created or updated on the remote computer during the deployment process. TSD will check it and show the result in the deployment log. If you deploy scripts, then you can verify their execution as well in this way.
Significant improvements were made to the Macro method and positively affected the deployment success rate for packages created using this method. Now there’s full deployment support for computers configured not to allow interactive services (the default setting for Windows 10 and 8.1), and more elements of the installer’s interface can be interacted with when recording a macro. All these improvements allow us to safely recommend that you use the Macro method in all cases where the Silent method doesn’t allow you to configure the installation exactly the way you want it.
And last but not least in this section: after numerous requests, .reg files can now be added to the software storage for their further deployment.
As we’ve promised, the list of installer formats supported for uninstallation was heavily expanded. Right now, software uninstallation is supported for all popular types of installers. Specifically, the update adds support for InnoSetup, NSIS, Smart Install Maker, Excelsior Installer, Ghost Installer, Install Aware and WinRar Installer (device rescan required). We’ve also paid special attention to MS Office: uninstallation of any packages of this popular software is now fully supported.
In the end, we’d like to draw your attention to the various improvements in the user interface. For example, both storage trees can now be hidden, and the size of the deployment and uninstallation log can be changed manually to make it easier to work with the deployment and uninstallation desktops:
The process of adding new programs to the software storage is no longer unnecessarily cumbersome. Now you can add as many installers at a time as you want, and less actions are required of you overall. For new users, we’ve added useful hints that will help them to get started with TSD.
And so now you should be aware of all the new things that were added in the third version. Have we managed to surprise you with anything? Download the update and try them for yourself. We’re positive that you won’t be let down!
The update is already available to all users via the usual link on our website or in the program itself (Help – Check for updates).
That’s everything for today. Keep following the news: there’s a major pleasant surprise in store for you ;-)