Advantages of a Network Installation

Once computers address files across a network, it becomes crucial that the files are accessible whenever required. This then begs questions regarding:

• Network Reliability

• Network Performance

• File Server Reliability

• File Server Performance

• Change Synchronisation

• Change Granularity

Common reasons for storing programs on file Servers are:

• To avoid the network loading of large and un-staggered rollouts.

• To guarantee the user base is working with the same files.

• To prevent tampering with programs and settings.

• To maintain a tradition.

All of these issues are of course resolvable with locally deployed applications

Note:
Direct editing of .msi's is discouraged in favor of Transforms (.mst files) because it will invalidate the installation certificates.