/bginfosetup

Installer for BGInfo

OtherNOASSERTION

BgInfo Setup

BgInfo is an awesome tool. It will show various system configuraiton information on the desktop. This is especiialy useful when using RDP to access multiple servers remotely. At a glance, one can know to which system they are connected.

BgInfo is distributed as a zip file containing the application. This is great until one wants to customize the configuration and deploy BgInfo to multiple computers. Running BgInfo via Group Policy is one solution. Another solution is to create an installation package for BgInfo.

Not surprisingly, BgInfo's license prohibits its re-distribution. Therefore, one cannot simply create an installer and present it to the Internet. However, it is simple enough to download BgInfo and create your own installer for one's own use.

Requirements

Download the following:

  1. BgInfo
  2. InnoSetup
  3. This project (pacopablo-bginfosetup-4.16.1beta.zip_)

Prep

  1. Unzip pacopablo-bginfosetup-4.16.1.zip to C:\bginfosetup

    unzip_project

  2. Unhelpfully, GiHub_ has packged the files into a directory labeled pacopablo-bginfosetup-4.16.1-XXXX.zip, where XXXX is some part of a hash. Move bginfosetup.iss and logon.bgi from the unzipped directory to C:\bginfosetup

  3. Install InnoSetup

  4. Unzip BgInfo to C:\bginfosetup\

Building the Installer

  1. Double-click on the bginfosetup.iss file. This should launch InnoSetup
  2. Build the project by pressing Ctrl-F9, the toolbar button or selecting Build->Compile from the menu.

If no errors are encountered, the setup file, bginfosetup.exe should be located in C:\bgsetupinfo\Output\

Running the installer

Double-clicking on the installer will run one through a pretty standard windows installer prompting for various pieces of information. The installer will allow one to select the destination directory along with the Start Menu location. By default, the installer puts the files into C:\Program Files\BGInfo, or C:\Program Files (x86)\BGinfo if on a 64bit Windows installation. The default Start Menu location is Accessories\BGInfo. Additionally, one can choose to run BgInfo after install.

The installer also sets BgInfo to launch on login so one can always enjoy BgInfo goodness.

Customize BgInfo

Once installed, if one wants to change the information displayed by BgInfo, run BGInfo Change Config found under Start->Accessories->BGInfo. This will start BgInfo in edit mode with a timeout of 10 seconds [1]. Click on the Timeout button to stop the timer. One can modify the template and then save it to C:\Program Files\BGInfo\logon.bgi [2] and the changes will be preserved for the next logon. Additionally, one can run BGInfo found under Start->Accessories->BGInfo to apply the changes immediately.

Customize Installer Config

As one may have surmised, the installer is crated by InnoSetup. Therefore, to customize the installer, one need only modify the bginfosetup.iss file. The InnoSetup Documentation is a great resource.

To ship a different default template, simply run BgInfo, create the template desired, and save it as logon.bgi. Then replace the provided logon.bgi with the newly created template. One can then build the installer following the instructions above

Versioning

Since this project is wrapping BgInfo, I have decided to follow the BgInfo version number. I have added a revsion number to the BgInfo version to reflect the build of the installer script.

TODO

  1. Create a silent install and uninstall so that it can be deployed by tools such as LANDesk

Footnoes

[1]Using a timeout other than /timer:0 caused BgInfo to crash under Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1.
[2]Adjust path to reflect the location used during install.