Friday 21 September 2012

Quest ChangeBASE 5.1 Released!


This week, we released version 5.1 of Quest® Workspace™ ChangeBASE. This release will focus on the addition of an excellent application installer packaging tool, MSI Studio, This new feature also removes some of the barriers of preparing applications for assessment and deployment.

Here is a summary of new features in 5.1:

  • Provide an integrated MSI package authoring tool – MSI Studio will be bundled with ChangeBASE at no extra cost. 
  • Extend ChangeBASE’s ability to import applications by integrating with System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 – SCCM 2007 is a software deployment tool that has widespread use among organizations and we can now import applications directly from these existing systems. 
  • View application dependencies – This addresses the problem that customers have in identifying whether an application requires resources from other applications or from the operating system in order to run effectively; a common problem for managing virtual applications. 
  • There are other minor improvements in the reporting Dashboard.

MSI Studio Package Editing Tool
With ChangeBASE 5.1, you can now right click and open any MSI or MSI transform (MST) package using the MSI Studio, also available standalone through ScriptLogic. ChangeBASE will include a special version of MSI Studio that allows MSI editing directly through the ChangeBASE UI.

Q: What’s the difference between the full version of MSI Studio and the one included in this release?

The full “Pro” version includes the following features that will not be available in the bundled version within ChangeBASE include: 
  • Software warehouse package database (conflict checking)
  • Repackaging EXE->MSI

Here are some other great additions to the ChangeBASE feature set:
  • System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) Integration: For customers who are using SCCM 2007 as their current deployment tool, this feature will be very handy.  It allows them to get the applications from the existing SCCM 2007 system and import from directly into ChangeBASE.
  • Dependency Viewer: This unique feature allows our customers to see if an application includes files that have a dependency on other applications or the operating system.  This is valuable information for the creation of virtual application packages as well as standard MSI packages.
  • Dashboard Reporting Improvements: Dashboard reporting was introduced in ChangeBASE 5.0.  This release introduces a number of improvements making the reporting richer and easier to use. 
Dashboard Improvements include:

  1. Dashboard Admin moved to main Options tab
  2. Product Name can be used to identify an application
  3. Before-and-after pie chart results improved
  4. Menu bar added


Which of the new features are included in existing licenses? 
Here is a chart to help out with licensing and feature issues.

Here are some handy links to the ChangeBASE 5.1 release documentation

Online Resources
ChangeBASE external community - http://communities.quest.com/community/changebase

How can I get it?
Download is now available on the Quest website: http://www.quest.com/changebase



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