Make snapshots of filesystem and registry using command line
Some installers can be very mysterious - this suddenly applies for MSI packages, even using full logging, it is not easy to find out which registry keys or files were modified\deleted\added. If you have application that is using some custom installer, this can be hell...
Colleague of mine came with really nice idea - what about using some tool like InstallRite or RegShot for monitoring all installations and reporting what was changed during that installation? From idea it is usually not far to implementation - you only need some tools to do it...
I used utility called System Sherlock Lite - it is very simple to use command line utility that can take snapshots from filesystem\registry and compare them. Of course it is freeware ;) It also supports exclusion list (using regexes), so you can easily configure it for your needs and ignore entries you are not interested in (usually log files or temporary folders).
So what I did is that I created 2 different scripts - StartMonitor and StopMonitor.
StartMonitor is creating first snapshot.
StopMonitor will create second snapshot, compare it with first snapshot and store differences in installation log file. Then it will delete both snapshots.
This implementation is really easy, but is working really nice. Now I can easily monitor all installation I want automatically without any knowledge about installer being used or installation method. It allows me to easily debug anything from logon\logoff scripts to software installations...
Martin