Build Master, The: Microsoft’s Software Configuration Management Best Practices

Chapter 13. Building Setup

	Philosophy: No more rewards for predicting rain, only for building arks.
	--Lou Gerstner, Former IBM CEO

You might be thinking, “What does setup have to do with building software?” A lot. I never set out to be a setup expert, but somehow I found myself researching and answering questions about setup even though my work was in build labs and on build processes. What seems to happen, as with most of the topics in this book, is that the build team by default becomes the owner of setup because it is the next step after the build is complete. When a team grows, a setup or install team is formed eventually. It is the build team’s responsibility to create the setup packages and thus the build should not be released until setup ...