Capture applications which require a reboot

Written by Alex Marin · August 7th, 2019

A few years ago, we were used to rebooting our machines to complete installations; nowadays, applications that require a restart are becoming a thing of the past.

However, there are still some exceptions to this rule, and in this article, we go through the easy process that Advanced Installer has to continue a capture after reboot.

Capture process

Because we didn’t have a particular application in mind, we created a simple MSI that places two files in %ProgramFiles% and added a forced reboot to it.

Assuming you have a clean virtual machine and a configured Repackager to connect to it, perform the following steps:

1. Open the Repackager
2. Click Capture Setup
3. Browse and select the executable
4. Press Start in VM and select your virtual machine from the toolbar
5. Select the location where the project is saved
6. Perform the installation on the virtual machine and reboot when asked
7. After reboot click Retry in Repackager to reconnect to the machine
8. In the virtual machine, press Enter when finished to continue the capture process

If the application has any post-reboot configurations, the Repackager captures them.

Conclusion

From now on, having an installer that requires a reboot is not a problem anymore if you follow the steps above when repackaging your application.