Patch Authority Ultimate 7.8 and up - How to create a custom patch for Apple iTunes 10 408 (SL4378)

This information applies to:

Patch Authority Ultimate Version 7.8 and higher.

HOW TO:

Create a custom patch for Apple iTunes 10.4  

This document shows how to create a custom patch to install Apple iTunes 10.4 with the minimum requirements. There is a 32 and 64 bit version of the iTunes setup package (figure 1). They each contain several components that provide support function for iTunes, (figure 2). To extract the files, run the setup, and wait for the welcome screen to appear, it will extract the files to “%temp%\ IXP999.TMP\”, copy them to a new location and cancel the installation.

Figure 1

Figure 2

They are not all necessary, so understanding the function they provide will help you decide what is best for your environment.

QuickTime: 

Is Apple’s multimedia framework, a collection of codecs, plugins, DLLs, and several players designed to help you play back digital media files in the most popular formats.

Apple Application Support: 

Is a required component for both iTunes and QuickTime. If you remove it, or if you install iTunes without also installing this package, you’ll get an error message.

Bonjour: 

This is a multicast DNS responder used to discover services on a local area network.

Apple Mobile Device Support: 

This is the synchronization framework for the Apple’s family of “mobile devices.”

iTunes:  

Apple’s all-purpose media player/device sync application.

Apple Software Update:  

This is a utility that checks for new versions of Apple software installed on your PC.

SetupAdmin.exe: 

This is the actual installer which is not necessary.

Patch Authority Ultimate already has the ability to detect the Apple Application Support (a prerequisite for iTunes), but for this example a custom patch was created to detect this component. This instruction will only highlight points of interest for creating this specific patch, since the details of creating a custom Patch is covered in another article (link to this article can be found at the bottom of this KB).

First, create your custom bulletin and add your summary. This is not a crucial part of the process but it does help to identify the patch in the scan results:

Figure 3

In the scan information section, enter the desired Patch Number and select the bulletin created in the previous section from the drop down list. “Select Software Distribution” as your patch type and select your desired severity, “None” is selected for this example (figure 4).

Figure 4

The detection logic used in this example is to locate the iTunes.exe file in the install path, and the comparison Type selected means that the file must exist and must be version 10.40.80 or greater to be considered installed, (figure 5).

The registry key “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Apple Computer, Inc.\iTunes” and InstalledLangID value may also be used in addition to or in place of the Itune.exe file as the detection logic.

Figure 5

In the Deployment Information window, browse for and select the Itunes.msi, (figure 6). It is important that this file be in the configured download location prior to deployment or the deployment will fail. The /passive comand line switch is used to enable unattended mode installation and “English” is selected for the supported language.

Figure 6

Save and import your custom patch from the Patch Authority Ultimate console. In this example the name of the custom patch is “AppleItunesCustomPatch.xml”, (figure 7).

Figure 7

Create a patch Group for the custom patch, (figure 8).

Figure 8

Create a scan template, add the Patch Groups to the scan template and select “Scan Selected”. It is possible to scan and deploy the selected patch group together, the scan engine is smart enough to deploy the prerequisite first if configured correctly.

Figure 9

In the “Software Distribution” section of scan the template check the “Software Distribution” check box and save the scan template.

Figure 10

The patch will show missing after scanning with the scan template, (figure 11).

Figure 11

The tracker will show a successful install after the deployment, (figure 12).

Figure 12

The console will also show the successful installation as well, (figure 13).

Figure 13

Related Articles or Solutions: 

How to create a Custom Patch