The most common and efficient means of deploying the client is by having the application packaged as an MSI. The pre-requisites required for the client are Microsoft Visual Redistributable Package (version of this depends on the version of your Client). These are two middleware components and so can be easily packaged by applying your own standards via an MST Transform file and ensuring they are installed before the Client via whatever mechanism you use for distributing your applications e.g. SCCM, Marimba,SMS etc.
Note that the Client Setup.exe actually also contains the error reporting application but this is not a pre-requisite. The Client can install and function without this so it’s optional.
The easiest way to package the client with Installshield is to create a Response Transform. It allows you to go through the dialogs of the install and select the options you want. The settings are then saved in an MST and applied to the application. One point of note is the fact that when you create the response Transform for me at least, the setting for my Virtual Drive letter in my case R:\ did not get changed accordingly. After some investigation I found the solution. I included the property FS_SWIFSDRIVE and set the value to R: , then it was just a case of applying my standards and away I go.
I can understand some readers may not use Installshield so as a more generic description:
When packaging the client, if you are not going for the default setup you will need to create a Transform, set properties in the property table/change registry settings to set some of the options for the install e.g. FS_SWIFSDRIVE should be set to the drive letter you choose. Also SWIGLOBALDATA etc.
You can also change the registry settings to enable the users to perform tasks such as adding an application to the client, updating OSD files, deleting applications etc. This can be found in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Softgrid\4.5 reg in the Permissions Hive. The Configuration hive stores the property values you set for things such as SWIGLOBALDATA and AllowIndependentFileStreaming and switching off the AutoLoad features (Triggers).
For a full description of these properties it’s worth while to checkout the link below to ensure you are setting the properties correctly for your required custom install.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc843737.aspx
