Publishing and deployment > MSI installation

The MSI is a standard Microsoft Windows setup file that installs a program named Intellek Deliver Launch to a user’s computer. Intellek Deliver Launch essentially runs the latest version of Intellek Deliver Client, which is the program that runs in conjunction with Intellek Deliver Manager.

The purpose of this document is to provide you with a quick explanation of how Intellek Deliver Client is deployed and works on a user’s computer. It is a program with a small footprint on the computer.

Overview

Once you have your configuration file setup, it’s time to create the Intellek Deliver Launch/Client MSI and deploy the Intellek Deliver Client to your users.

To test the MSI and get an idea of how the final Intellek Deliver Client works, you can simply take the MSI and install it on to a computer on your network by transferring it to that computer and double clicking. The MSI installs the program ‘Intellek Deliver Launch’. It will also place a shortcut to Intellek Deliver Launch in the start menu of the computer.

Once you have the MSI file, your company will have a policy determining how you roll out a program to user’s computer. This might be through Group Policy or using other software to roll out software over the network. That is in your hands.

Once the MSI is installed on the computer, the installation directory of the program is in the user profile folder. This will typically be along the lines of

C:\Users\[USER_NAME]\AppData\Roaming\Intellek\Intellek Intellek Deliver Launch

You will notice 2 things at this point:

1.The program resides in the user profile

2.There is only an Intellek Deliver Launch folder

User profile folder usage

The user profile folder is used so that we can guarantee a user’s access to the folder has read and write permissions.

Why just Intellek Deliver Launch initially?

Intellek Deliver Launch is a simple program with the sole task of setting up and running the latest version of Intellek Deliver Client. The MSI installs a shortcut to Intellek Deliver Launch in the start menu in Windows. This means that each time the user logs in, Intellek Deliver Launch is run.

On the first run of Intellek Deliver Launch, a configuration file is read (Athena.tacf) which holds the license key ID specified in Intellek Deliver Manager. Running the Launch program performs the following tasks:

1.If they don’t already exist (on first run) the following folder and sub folders are created:

a.IntellekDeliverOffline

i.IntellekDeliverClient - Contains the latest version of the Intellek Deliver Client program that will be run on the local computer.

ii.IntellekDeliverFiles - Storage of files pertinent to the running of the client (Content Store file and Intellek Deliver Manager configuration TACX file). The TACX file is synchronized over to the user’s computer on a regular basis.

iii.IntellekDeliverTracking - Storage of the tracking file that records what links a user has clicked on, etc. This is synchronized back to the Intellek Servers in the cloud for reports to be run in Intellek Deliver Manager.

2.Every five minutes Intellek Deliver Launch performs the following tasks:

a.Downloads the latest versions of the files in point 1 above as necessary.

b.Checks for the latest version of the Client program, downloads it if necessary and runs it. It reads the local TACX file which was originally created in Intellek Deliver Manager and specified as the ‘live’ file for users.

Apart from having confidence that there will be no read and write issues, the main reason to run everything locally on a user’s computer is to allow the program to continue running even if they disconnect from the internet.

For example, the tracking file will keep updating if disconnected from the internet and synchronize once reconnected. The TACX configuration file will be available offline as will the Content Store file which is used when performing a search.