Installing iWork/iLife/etc.

[n00b99]

So, with InstaDMG, can I go ahead and have iwork 08/09 and ilife 08/09 install automatically or make them optional installs?

I don’t want to create a user and then delete the user… would like to have the customer open the machine and have it look factory.

I’m a n00b with this stuff.

Thank you.

[Patrick Fergus]

You’re trying to create a standard deployable image, correct? Just making sure you’re in the right place.

If you have an OEM disc with iWork/iLive 08/09, a default installation with that disc would include that program. You could optionally defer the installation of those programs by using an InstallerChoices.xml file–search the forum for more information. If you want the machine to “look factory”, don’t install any packages that disable the setup assistant or create any users. Don’t download and use clearReg.pkg or createUser.pkg and the machine should start up to the Setup Assistant.

Lastly, don’t install more licenses of iWork/iLife than you actually have purchased.

– Patrick

[n00b99]

We often have customers who buy machines and want upgrades and software… so while we upgrade the drive and or ram… or they just want us to install their software, we normally want to leave the entire “Welcome to Mac” experience in tact for the customer.

I would never stray from any EULA… so normally when we upgrade hard drives on new machines (which is quite often), they need their whole OS installed and iLife 08/09 (mostly 09 now). I would just like to have a few external drives with the installers to be able to send the customer home with everything they have purchased, but no user account. We do clone the hard drive on many occasions to the new drive, but when it comes to that “additional” software, it becomes a pain. And if a tech or sales person has misspelled a shortname, you know what kind of hassle that can be (they are human).

I’d love to give them a machine that has all of the latest software updates and whatever software they purchased… they can bother with entering in any serial #’s (unless that’s possible with InstaDMG).

Thank you.

[Patrick Fergus]

Ah, order prep–did that for a year or so at my previous job. I think you’ll find it difficult to use ASR (to restore InstaDMG-generated images) because of:

– Upgrade installations (a new copy of Leopard, a bigger HD for an older machine) will always require you to perform an upgrade installation, so an ASR restore (which wipes the target drive in 90% of cases) won’t help you
– Reacting to new machines and being absolutely positive that your build is good is pretty nerve-wracking because you don’t have control of the computer once it leaves your hands. Any error that’s big enough in the customer’s eyes is going to have them asking for free service or a refund. If your company is divided between the sales and service arms (as mine was) correcting the errors of the sales side of the fence isn’t going to make the service side happy.

Most of the people here are building for a fleet of machines and looking backwards for compatibility. You’ll be behind the eight ball and always looking forwards. I sympathize that it takes a long time to perform the installations, but it is the nature of the beast. If you’re doing many Leopard upgrades you may be able to speed things up by using NetBoot/NetInstall for the Leopard upgrade, or imaging the software installation disks to hard drives for commonly installed software.

To get that new out-of-the-box feel you can make the Setup Assistant run again and clean up the droppings left by logging in. Assuming you’re using Leopard, started up from the disk in question, and running this script with superuser privileges:

#!/bin/bash
setupUser=YOURSETUPUSER
setupUserGUID=`/usr/bin/dscl . -read "/Users/$setupUser" GeneratedUID | /usr/bin/awk '{print $NF;}'`

#Remove the setup user from the admin group
/usr/bin/dscl . -delete "/Groups/admin"  GroupMembership "$setupUser"

#Delete the setup user's dslocal record
rm -f /var/db/dslocal/nodes/Default/users/${setupUser}.plist

#Delete the setup user's password hash
rm -f cd /var/db/shadow/hash/"$setupUserGUID"
rm -f cd /var/db/shadow/hash/"$setupUserGUID".state

#Delete the Setup Assistant flags (let the Setup Assistant run again)
rm -f /private/var/db/.AppleSetupDone
rm -f /Library/Receipts/.SetupRegComplete

#Delete the setup user's home
rm -rf /Users/"$setupUser"

#Turn off the computer
shutdown

dscl code partially borrowed from http://codesnippets.joyent.com/tag/dscl, and more specifically http://codesnippets.joyent.com/posts/show/1405.

– Patrick

[n00b99]

Ok, one last question 🙂

That will leave the system mint? As in, the root user password will not be remembered and everything will be “factory fresh”?

Thank you.

[Patrick Fergus]

OS X “client” (as opposed to OS X Server) doesn’t set the root password unless you explicitly set it via Directory Utility or dscl. So no worries there.

Is this all that’s needed? I don’t know. It covers what I can think of off the top of my head.

– Patrick

[Author]

Posts