Package Conversion Manger Readiness States and Rules

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In my previous post I gave an overview of what Package Conversion Manger (PCM) was. In this post I will cover the various readiness states and the rules that determine each of the readiness states.

 

Readiness states

There are 5 readiness states which are shown in the slide below along with their definitions.

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Automatic, Manual, and Not Applicable Readiness Rules

As unknown and converted are pretty straight forward lets concentrate on the rules associated with automatic, manual, and not applicable.

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1. Package Contains only 1 MSI

Essentially this means that they only have 1 program and it must be pointing to an MSI. The reason for this is if it contains more than one program PCM won’t be able to determine your Deployment Type preference. If you don’t have a program pointing to an MSI then PCM won’t be able to determine your detection method.

The one exception to this rule is if you have an install program and an uninstall program. Because we get the uninstall from the MSI and discard the uninstall program.

2. No Unconverted Dependencies

If a program has a dependency setup that dependency will need to be converted first. Once the dependency is converted we can setup the link between the dependent app and the dependency app on conversion of the dependent package.

3. Content is Accessible

Content must be accessible in order to get to the MSI and get the detection method.

4. Must have content

Must have content: The setting “this package contains source files” on the package must be checked and filled out with a valid path.

5. Is a Software Dist Package

There are many types of packages in Configuration Manager. We check the type of package and only analyze/convert software distribution packages.

6. Contains at least 1 Program

If it doesn’t contain any programs then it is a just a package possible with source files and is not applicable.

 

Readiness States and Corresponding Rules

In this section we will take a look at the Automatic, Manual, and Not Applicable states and which rules have to be true in order for a package to be in a particular readiness state.

Automatic Readiness State

In order for the package to be in the “Automatic” readiness state, which is the only readiness state that CTP 1 can convert, all rules (1 - 6) have to be true.

Manual Readiness State

In order for a package to be in the “Manual” readiness state rules 4, 5, and 6 have to be true. Additionally if rules 1, 2, or 3 are not true, then the package will be in the “Manual” readiness state. I would like to reiterate that in the CTP 1 release PCM does not help convert “Manual” packages. We are working on adding support for the Fix and Convert feature (converting manual packages) in a future release.

Not Applicable

If rule 4,5, or 6 are not true then the package will be in the “Not Applicable” readiness state.