How to quickly set up a developer's machine?

Question

I know that this can be done, and I saw how it was done with some gui front end tool (using robocopy from the inside). I just can’t reveal my stuff by trying google, but I couldn’t get to it.

I am going to start a new project, and I finished setting up the desktop with all the tools needed on this computer. what I want now is a tool or utility ... to which I can say, here is one folder (and some other folders ..) take this and prepare some kind of setup program that when run on any machine (winxp sp3) will copy / install all these programs to this machine.

To add to this, I have a virtualized build server, and I'm not talking about virtualization and ghost images. I have some software utilities that make life easier for programmers (for example, IDEs with smooth plug-ins (with the correct configuration and versions), small software tools (tcp monitors), etc.) that I want to add to the developer's machine.

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Update:

I don't think anyone reads the whole question. I said that I saw that this thing is being done, with some kind of front-end gui program that generates the installer, I cannot find a program that does this and it uses an internal copy of robocopy that you can copy to distributed location (pendrive / networkdrive / ftp / http ... the list) ... after which the program will copy all the programs and files to the target machine where this installation is running ... and I'm not talking about a simple copy of the file .. .that would be a light party / powershell script ... I think it can be done och It’s easy ... and if nothing comes, I will do just that .... but robocopy may skip programs such as launching and shell extensions ...

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Update:

Ok ... I thought again (at the moment I made a workaround ...) ... does anyone know about a program that can generate installers such as installshield etc ... and which come is free...

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Update:

The constant bastard that I am ... a nullsoft scriptable install system blew my horn. and thanks to this, I now have setup.exe, which I can run on any system and make this system feel at home with any good Java developer.

Answer 1

NSIS is the answer to this magic trick.

Answer 2

Try http://www.symantec.com/norton/ghost

Answer 3

I have a couple of different basic development environment configurations hosted on virtual machines (Virtual Server 2005). Once I was pleased with them, I sysprep'd them. Now that I need the environment for a specific type of project, I clone the virtual machine with the required configuration, start it and turn it off, I go to work. The great thing is that if I destroy the virtual machine, all I have to do is start over from one of the sysprep images. This is such a temporary pause.

Answer 4

Acronis Trueimage is a good way if you have performance / memory issues for your computer! (if you want to completely reinstall).

We use VMWare to provide a complete image from the network or from a portable hard drive. You benefit from the same (custom) host environment, which depends on the change in the guest client. For large projects, we are thinking of introducing VMWare because we already have the ESX Cluster cluster running.

If you are only looking for software distribution utilities, you should take a look at Microsoft SMS

Answer 5

If you are creating ASP.NET in a Windows environment, Microsoft Web Installer is a good bet for getting a new workstation fast.

Answer 6

You might be talking about the Robocopy GUI . I have not tried it myself, so I don’t know what you are looking for.

Otherwise, Ghost should be able to simply select multiple folders and files, and not just the full OS, so this may be a better choice, not sure if you can deploy the software to other directories than on the main computer.

Or, if you are actually going to do this on many machines, deployment software such as Microsofts SMS might work.

Answer 7

Using the virtualization package installer is an obvious technical answer, but you should also think about some written processes.

One of the things that always happens to me, I always think that "I just do it once, or if I have to do it again, I will remember that I downloaded, where I got it from and how I set it up."

... and I'm usually wrong. I almost always duplicate one environment, because I have a different machine, or I work from another place, or something failed, etc.

So, I highly recommend keeping a written record, but not too complicated at first. Something simple: the name of the package, the current version, and why you downloaded it.

If you start doing something over and over again, you may need to start the steps, especially if it is a shared resource. If you need to do this a lot, you can save all the software images in one place, for example, in a shared folder or a USB flash drive.

(In the brave, new world of Web 2.0, you can use ticket tracking like Fogbugz online to track this stuff, one ticket per system type ...)

The main thing to remember is that these configurations often take life on their own and live far beyond your expectations. You will probably need support for new operating systems, new releases, etc.