This evening, I have been working to create some Physical Resource Packages in System Center VMM 2012 for a project at work. VMM by default supports the following file types and extensions for resources:
- Answer Files (.inf .ini .xml)
- ISO Images (.iso)
- Script Files (.ps1 .sql)
- Virtual Floppy Disks (.flp .vld)
- Virtual Hard Disk (.vhd .vmdk)
The resource package I am trying to create will be used as part of an Application Profile to allow VMM to install a server-side application as part of a Service Template Deployment, however as the installation file consists of a .msi Windows Installer Package, VMM wouldn’t import it.
Looking at the pre-defined resource packages, I noticed that the Server App-V and the Web Deploy resource packages contained .msi files and they were imported okay, so what was the difference?
The difference is in the handling. VMM by default asks for a folder path where your custom resources reside after which it will import them into a library. By default, once you provide a path, VMM will import all supported objects from path. To add unsupported objects such as .exe and .msi files for Application Profiles, you must append the folder name for your source files with .cr.
This addition causes VMM to import the entire folder regardless of content. In my example, my folder name went from Microsoft_iSCSI_Software_Target to Microsoft_iSCSI_Software_Target.cr and VMM now has the package imported.