Mac deployment installer in .pkg format or similar

I am a systems engineer working for a university with a few hundred staff machines that run Endnote. I am in charge of the Apple Mac side of things and it is proving very difficult to update all machines in a timely manner, as I do with every other application we administer.

I use autopkg/munki to deploy pkg installers to systems automatically. Is it possible to have Endnote supplied in a .pkg format instead of a .app format so that it can be deployed in this same way?

2 Likes

I’d like to second this request.  We have multiple Mac-based computer labs on campus and while we can package up the volmue license installation, the only way of really deploying witoht trouble is to current build-in EndNote (which means we have to build-in Office 2011 as well) into our base image.  We’re trying to get away from that and having a way to create a functional PKG of EndNote to use (with an option to disable update notices like in the Windows version) would be great.

Yes please - I would also like to chime in on this request.

In large university populations, we really rely on enterprise deployment systems (Munki, Casper, etc) to manage our Macintosh fleet. EndNote remains one of the most painful applications to hack in to a deployable package that can be used this way.

Please - support your largest customers and provide us with a deployment pkg. At this stage, both Zotero and Mendalay are FAR easier to deploy using these systems.

Thank you,

Tim.

I don’t know if most of the other Mac admins have given up hope or something else. I for one am grateful you have requested this feature.

It is so inefficient, error-prone and time consuming to repackage the EndNote updaters in order to mass deploy. It would be far simpler for Clarivate Analytics to use native tools in 2018 to make it easier to update their product. Just like Adobe, Microsoft, Mendeley and Zotero.

Thanks for listening.

Agreed.

It’s disappointing to see such a fundamental installation requirement still being an issue 3 1/2 years after it was originally requested.

To those struggling with updaters specifically, there is a silent-install option for patches, but not for the main product installer.

For updates, the applyPatch binary is buried in the updater app:

cd /path/to/EndNote\ X8.2\ Updater.app/Contents/Resources/

./applyPatch -d /Applications/EndNote\ X8/ -I ./Patchfile.patch