Ninite Blog

Acrobat Pro/Standard Updates in Ninite Pro

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:19:41 -0800

We’ve just added support to update Adobe Acrobat Professional and Adobe Acrobat Standard in Ninite Pro. This has been one of the most requested features from our professional users.

This supports both version 9 and 10 of both Acrobat Professional and Acrobat Standard.
It can’t install new versions of Acrobat, only update existing ones. If Acrobat is not installed you’ll get a ‘Skipped (not supported: Not installed, updates only)’ status.
Our /disableautoupdate switch is supported for Acrobat, so you can turn off Acrobat’s annoying update popups for your users and manage their updates with Ninite Pro.

Acrobat updates are only in our Pro version, but if you want to check it out all you have to do is send us a quick note asking for our one week free trial.

Thanks for using Ninite!

We’ve just improved Ninite One to make it incredibly easy...

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 16:49:59 -0800

We’ve just improved Ninite One to make it incredibly easy to use Ninite on all the machines on your network.

There’s now a “Show remote options” link in the lower left of the Ninite One window. Click it and Ninite will scan your local network for accessible machines. Then you can select some machines and install, update, or audit the software on them. All with one click!

We have more documentation on our help site.

We’ve also made it easier to set some advanced options and switch between the install, update, and audit modes. You can do that with the little menu triangle to the right of the “Install” button.

As always, there’s no need to update or redownload your copy of Ninite One to use the new features. Just run it and start managing the software on your network.

Piriform

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:32:43 -0700

Cross-posting this from our twitter account:

Piriform’s CEO asked us to remove their apps, we’re working on fixing it. Sorry for any inconvenience. We’ll keep you updated here. Thanks!

No more news at the moment, but we are working on it.

InfraRecorder

Fri, 20 May 2011 08:00:50 -0700

InfraRecorder is now on Ninite.com.

There were a ton of user requests for it, so we added it. Get it direct with our easy urls at http://ninite.com/infrarecorder.

It is also available in Ninite One.

Keep those app requests coming, and thanks for using Ninite!

At Last: Shockwave is now on Ninite

Mon, 16 May 2011 14:03:40 -0700

We’ve finally added Shockwave to Ninite.com.

After hearing about numerous sites and applications that still require it, we decided to reverse our earlier position on Shockwave. There was particularly high demand from educational users.

Shockwave is available for home users at http://ninite.com as well as for professional users and in Ninite One. As always, Ninite updates are immediate and transparent so there’s no need to download new Ninite One .exes.

Ninite One now supports .NET 4

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:40:28 -0700

A few Ninite Pro users let us know that they’re starting to see (mainly enterprise) apps that require .NET 4 instead of .NET 3.5. So we’ve added support to Ninite One to install .NET 4.

If you’re using the manual selection it’s listed down at the bottom under Extras. Alternatively you can use the /select switch like this: NiniteOne.exe /select “.NET 4” /silent report.txt

For now we’re keeping .NET 3.5 as the only option in the free web-based version of Ninite. It’s still the right choice for most users and a big reason we run the free site is to make getting software incredibly simple. Part of this means paring down choices and just doing the right thing. I know most of my friends would get really confused if they had to pick between 3.5 and 4.

Thanks for using Ninite!

After getting requests from some Ninite Pro users to support...

Tue, 19 Apr 2011 07:54:46 -0700

After getting requests from some Ninite Pro users to support older versions of apps we’ve created a limited http://ninite.com/oldversions page. Right now it includes Adobe Reader 9 and Firefox 3, which were the main apps people wanted older versions of. This is only available for Pro users right now and should be considered a beta feature. We’ll try to keep these apps available as long as people use them and as long as the publishers continue to host those old versions.

The older versions are only available at that page as standalone installers and not included in Ninite One at the moment. This is due to the internal implementation of the /updateonly switch and also an open question about what users would expect (should firefox 3 be updated to firefox 4 or the latest 3.x version?).

Anyway, let us know what you think, and thanks for using Ninite!

Speccy is now on Ninite

Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:44:34 -0700

Users requested it and we added it.

Speccy is an attractive system information viewer that displays a ton of information about your PCs hardware. You can now get it on http://ninite.com under the utilities section, or just get it directly with our easy-to-share urls at http://ninite.com/speccy

Keep those app requests coming in, and thanks for using Ninite!

PDFCreator

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 18:33:10 -0700

We’ve just added PDFCreator to Ninite after getting a number of requests for it. Some people specifically pointed out that they prefer it over CutePDF, another PDF printing tool we have on Ninite. Give it a try next time you need to export something as a PDF.

Ninite Pro Trials

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 14:37:00 -0700

We’ve seen an explosion of interest in Ninite Pro from enterprise users recently.

To make it easier to evaluate Ninite (and pitch it to the boss/purchasing dept.) we just built a Trial Mode for Ninite Pro. All you have to do is fill out this quick form.

It’s the full Ninite Pro, so you can try out /silent mode, the /select switch, offline installers, the download cache, /updateonly mode, and all the other great Pro features described in our documentation. Take it for a spin, kick the tires a bit, then subscribe to Ninite Pro.

It’s really great to see Ninite helping so many people save time at work and we’re happy to see that word about Ninite is spreading fast. Thanks for using Ninite!

CCCP

Wed, 23 Mar 2011 17:01:11 -0700

We just added the Combined Community Codec Pack to Ninite and Ninite One. It was heavily, heavily requested with many users specifically recommending it over K-Lite. Check it out at http://ninite.com/cccp and tell your friends too using our easy-to-share urls.

Keep the requests and feedback coming in, and thanks for using Ninite!

/updatecache

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 18:53:17 -0700

Our Ninite Pro users really like the added speed they get from the Pro version’s download cache. It’s completely automatic for basic usage, it supports being placed on a network share or other location for special situations, and usually eliminates the need to wait for app downloads at all.

We’ve gotten a number of requests from Pro users to have a way to update the download cache without installing apps or making a frozen installer. So we added it. It’s called /updatecache and it’s documented along with the other cache help as well as the full list of Ninite’s command-line switches.

Please keep in mind that the cache doesn’t fully prevent new downloads. If a new version of Open Office comes out and you’re helping someone who’s on a dialup connection you’re going to be in for a wait. The solution to avoid problems like that is still to make offline installers with /freeze.

Let us know what you think of the new feature or if you can think of other ways Ninite can make your job easier. We’re always listening on our feedback page. Thanks!

About Our Redesign

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 16:57:41 -0800

We recently redesigned ninite.com and I wanted to give some background on why we did it and what our goals were. Here are some screenshots of the old site to compare with.

The main idea behind the change was to make the site more readable and simple to understand.

We found that the old light text over a dark background was difficult to focus on. The bulk of text at the top of the page just invited users to skip it entirely. And our large background image could be slow to load and a performance nightmare over remote access or VNC. But the root of it is that text-heavy pages just weren’t easy to read before. We tested the new design on our help site for a couple weeks before converting everything to it since it is the most text-heavy part of ninite.com.

By stripping the page down to the basics I think we’ve accomplished a number of positive things. The site loads faster because there are fewer images to download. By letting the bullet points about what Ninite does flow down the side instead of get skipped at the top we seem to be communicating with users much more effectively. We get far fewer simple questions that are explained on the front page these days.

We were getting an incredible number of “Does it install 64-bit apps?” and similar questions before when this was literally the second thing on the page. (Yes, Ninite does install 64-bit apps automatically when appropriate.)

We also moved to a more traditional toolbar-on-top layout instead of the old links to the Linux version, etc. being on the bottom. This seems to fit better with the standard website layouts users are familiar with and makes the site easier to navigate.

It’s definitely still a work in progress, but we’re happy with the results so far. We’ll be experimenting with the design more over the next few weeks. As always, we do read and respond (when you leave an email) to all our feedback, so let us know what you think. Thanks!

Embed Ninite in your site

Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:01:28 -0800

Last week we highlighted our new simple sharing URLs like: http://ninite.com/firefox-skype

Now we have another great sharing option: Embedding a Ninite selection page in your blog or website. Here’s an example with some web browsers:

Pretty neat! The code for that is:

<iframe src="http://ninite.com/embed?only=firefox-opera-safari-chrome"
        style="border: none; width: 650px; height: 240px;"></iframe>

You can just paste that code into your page and you’ll have an awesome browser installer maker. It’s super simple.

If you look closely at the iframe’s src= url you can see another new feature: selection limiting.

You can actually choose any subset of apps from the Ninite frontpage to go in an embedded Ninite selector by setting the only= query string argument. Just string together their codenames with dashes. You can also make a list of codenames by creating an installer with the apps you want at ninite.com and then copying the last part of the installer page url (after ninite.com/).

You may need to adjust the iframe’s height depending on how many apps you add and if you want it to scroll.

The only= argument also works with the Ninite homepage, so if you don’t want to overwhelm a friend with all the apps on Ninite you can send them to: http://ninite.com/?only=firefox-skype-chrome-flash-flashie-vlc-dropbox

This can also be combined with the select= argument, so you can do something like: http://ninite.com/?only=firefox-skype-chrome-flash-flashie-vlc-dropbox&select=chrome-skype

You can start using these new sharing features right away. Just like with Ninite installers there’s no need for any signup or setup. It absolutely is the easiest and fastest way to share, install, and update apps.

We’d love to hear about what you make with these new features. Let us know on our feedback page or @ninite on twitter.

/exclude and /cachepath switches for Ninite Pro

Fri, 04 Mar 2011 17:02:18 -0800

We’ve added a couple new switches to make Ninite Pro more powerful and easier to use.

First up is /exclude. Some Pro users wrote in asking for something like our command-line app selection switch /select that stops an app from being installed or updated. Now you can do things like:

NiniteOne.exe /updateonly /exclude Python /silent report.txt

To update all the apps Ninite knows about but leave Python alone.

The other addition we have is /cachepath. This lets you set the Ninite cache location on the command-line instead of in a ninite.ini file. We think it will be particularly useful when integrating Ninite Pro with Remote Monitoring and Management tools. Just point it at a local network share and you’ll start saving bandwidth.

Both of these new features require a Ninite Pro subscription. As always, you can read about all the powerful Pro features at our help site and our command-line reference. If you’re using Ninite at work you should definitely check it out.

We made Ninite.com so easy to use, you don't even have to visit the site

Thu, 03 Mar 2011 15:30:24 -0800

Lifehacker got the scoop last Friday on Ninite’s new super simple and readable installer links. But we wanted to fill you in with a few more details here.

They look like: http://ninite.com/firefox-flash-flashie

While they’re great for sharing an installer you build on our homepage, our favorite feature is that you can just write them out when you need them.

Is someone asking you about anti-virus software, just send them to http://ninite.com/essentials. Want to share something with a friend on dropbox and then talk about it on skype? Send them http://ninite.com/dropbox-skype.

You don’t even have to visit the website to use Ninite.com now, that’s how easy we’ve made it. No share button to click, no registration, no opaque permalinks. Just write it.

The app names separated by dashes just have letters a-z in them (due to another feature we’re building), so you’ll have to watch out for apps like dotnet, paintdotnet, sevenzip, or notepadplusplus. But with that in mind, it’s now easier than ever to share Ninite installers and help friends get through the tedium that is Windows app installation these days.

Just spell it out!

Glary Utilities plus @ninite

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 10:27:41 -0800

We’ve added Glary Utilities to the Ninite homepage under the Utilities section (where else?). It used to only be available at the makeuseof page and in Ninite One for our Pro users. But an overwhelming number of requests made us promote it to the homepage.

Additionally, we’re now on Twitter as @ninite. You can follow us for updates.

Integration with Level Platforms

Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:59:10 -0800

Integration with Level Platforms:

We’re pleased to announce Ninite demo installers are available in Level Platforms Managed Workplace 2011. Here’s the press release.

This is our first integration with a Remote Monitoring and Management (RMM) tool and we think it’s a great fit.

Documentation Updated and New Pro Features

Sun, 30 Jan 2011 14:16:00 -0800

We’ve cleaned up our documentation more and wrote up details of some new Ninite Pro features we’d been testing lately. The new Pro features are installing apps without desktop or quicklaunch shortcuts, installing apps with any auto-update features disabled, and installing apps for all users.

The install for all users feature just works for Google Chrome right now, but we plan to expand that to the other affected apps. Those are listed on the /allusers feature page.

Each of these features grew out of feedback we heard from Ninite users. We read it all and answer every email that leaves a reply address. Seriously. Try it.

For example, initially we didn’t think desktop shortcuts were a big deal for users to just delete on their own. Plus novice users don’t think software is installed unless it shows up on the desktop. It was only after hearing from some Pro users who were deploying software on thousands of machines at once that we realized Ninite was falling short here. That’s the story behind /disableshortcuts.

Like all Ninite feature updates they’re already live for any Ninite Pro or Ninite One installers that you may already have created.

While these new features are just for Ninite Pro users, everyone who’s using Ninite could probably learn something new and useful by browsing our help site. We present a simple interface to new users, but Ninite is really powerful below the hood and constantly improving.

Finally, we’ve added some instructions for using Ninite with a couple popular remote monitoring and management (RMM) tools. We’ve posted notes on using Ninite with Kaseya, and using Ninite with Labtech. If you know of any similar resources or information that we should post, please tell us.

LibreOffice on Ninite

Thu, 27 Jan 2011 14:40:53 -0800

We’re happy to announce that LibreOffice is now available on Ninite. LibreOffice is a close relative, or fork, of the OpenOffice project and it sounds like most new development will happen on it instead of OpenOffice. Here’s a review over at arstechnica with more background.

The Wikipedia article makes it sound like the LibreOffice name may be temporary, but don’t worry about that affecting any Ninite installers you make today. The part of our architecture that lets Ninite installers always get the latest versions of apps (no matter when they were made) also means we can support name changes. In fact, if LibreOffice and OpenOffice end up merging back together Ninite could install the latest version of the merged product for all LibreOffice or OpenOffice Ninite installers, even those made a year ago. Though you can always lock down a specific version with Ninite Pro’s frozen offline installers.

Anyway, give it a try and let us know what you think.