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Capture on a remote virtual machine

Setup Capture captures all system changes to the local drives, registry, services and other areas of a remote virtual machine. Then, capturing results are transfered to your work station (PC).

The system changes can be made eiter by a source installation (like a black box EXE installer) or by the user’s actions (like copying files, importing .REG to the system registry, changing app settings).

Note

In order to use a remote virtual machine for capturing, first configure it. See Capturing environment configuration.

  1. Run Launcher either from the Start Menu or Desktop shortcut on your work station (PC).

    img_start-menu-shortcuts img_desktop-shortcuts

  2. Click Repackage remotely in the Tasks > Package, Virtualize group.

    launcher-tasks-package-repackage-remotely

  3. Select your configured virtual machine fom the list and click Next >.

    capture-remotely-1

  4. Select the capturing method, project name and its location. Choose exclusion filters that will be used to detect and filter out the unnecessary resources. Then, click Next >.

    • Use Monitoring method for the quicker capturing.

    • Use Snapshotting method for capturing huge installations and those that require the system restart.

    capture-remotely-2

  5. Select the installation processing mode, installer and its related files to transfer to a virtual machine and click Next >.

    • In the Automated mode the wizard runs your Source installation with Arguments between the pre-install and post-install scans. The post-install scan starts once the process of the run source installation is ended.

    • In the Manual mode, the wizard will pause after the pre-install scan to allow you to install any set of apps, change the required app settings and make any system changes that you need to capture and include in the package.

    capture-remotely-3

  6. If you have selected the Manual mode:

    • Wait while the virtual machine preparation and pre-install scan are made.

      capture-remotely-4

    • Connect to the virtual machine in your usual way to to be able to see the desktop and run the source installation for capturing. The specified source installation is copied to the C:\Sources folder of the virtual machine.

      capture-remotely-4-vm-desktop

    • Run and complete installers of apps that you need to capture manually on the virtual machine. Also at this stage you can make any system changes that you need to capture along with apps.

      image54

    • When finished, switch back to the capturing wizard on your work station (PC), tick I have completed the installation and click Continue.

      capture-remotely-4-completed

  7. Capturing is completed. Click Finish to close the wizard. By default, the created capturing project will be opened for editing and the virtual machine be restored to the previous state.

    capture-remotely-5

    Note

    If the capturing Summary contains the detected ‘vendor’ MSI packages, consider editing them via transform (MST) instead of repackaging. Repackaging the existing vendor MSI into a new MSI may lead to losing the original business logic.

    capture-remotely-5-vendor-msi



Note

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