Auto Installers – The Time Savers in this Technological World Prepared by: Danny Nagdev, MKCL, India Page 1 of 3 AUTO INSTALLERS – T HE T IME S AVERS IN THIS T ECHNOLOGICAL W ORLD BACKGROUND This paper talks about various Software Auto Installers which were created by Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited (MKCL) to save huge delays and hu man efforts, caused due to software installation procedures at our learning centers. Before touching upon how we went about creating these Auto Installers, it would be apt to introduce MKCL as it would emphasize the magnitude of the problems faced by our learning centers while installing the softwares. ABOUT MKCL MKCL- Maharashtra Knowledge Corporation Limited- is a public limited company established in Mumbai by the Government of Maharashtra, India, in August 2001, to create new paradigm in education and development through universalization and integration of Information Technology in teaching, learning and educational management processes in particular and socio-economic transformative processes in general. MKCL is an entrepreneurial endeavor to bridge the Digital Divide and the resultant Knowledge Divide and Opportunity Divide by offering actionable knowledge and essential services to masses for socio-economic transformation. In order to bridge the digital divide, MKCL launched a state-wide IT Literacy course in the form of Maharashtra State Certificate in Information Technology Program - MS-CIT in July 2002. This program is implemented across the state through a private-public-partnership (PPP) network of more than 5000 Authorized Learning Centers (ALCs) spread all across rural and urban areas of the State. Over 5.5 million learners have gone through this course in the last nine years. THE PROBLEM – AN OPPORTUNITY TO INNOVATE As the number of learning centers grew in number, so did the number of computers in each center. This resulted in a huge computer base of approximately 20,000 computers. Due to Internet bandwidth constraints the in-house developed Learning Management system, along with the full eLearning content was installed on the desktop (designated as server) of each learning center. This gave faster access to the eLearning content to the students of the center. In order to curb software piracy, Operating Systems, Application Softwares and Antivirus softwares were centrally purchased and sent to each center in DVDs. The LMS and its prerequisites like Microsoft .Net Framework, Windows Installer etc. were also sent along with these DVDs. Every center has a center coordinator who used these DVDs and installed these softwares on the centers computers. Even though it seems to be a very simple software installation process, it resulted in a very time consuming and labor intensive process. Figure 1 depicts a typical software installation scenario.