What I'm trying to do is replicate an entire application environment from
one box (on which the environment is developed) onto a number of laptops so
the sales guys can show off the software in an environment which contains
pre-set application meta-data, sample data, etc. The entire environment
consists of

1. Database
2. Data Files
3. Web Applications

(The software is treated separately since we have a separate, production MSI
for the deployment of our production software.)

I'm using Wise Installer to package items 1, 2 and 3 into an MSI. Since
items 2 and 3 are a variably changing set of artifacts, it helps immensely
that Wise provides a wildcard facility so that I can specify to package all
files in a given folder structure into the MSI. As long as the artifacts are
restricted to a small number of well-known starting folder locations this
works.

So I can pick up all of my data file artifacts, and even all of my web
application *files* (i.e. ASPX, bin, etc.) using wildcards to specify to
pick up all files starting from a few folder locations on the source box.
What I can't do though, is use a wildcard to specify all virtual folders on
the source box, to be packaged for deployment. Our application is
open-ended, allowing for interface extensions to be written as external web
applications. This means that the guys who put the demo environment together
are continuously coming up with new web application extensions. References
to these web applications are picked up in the database and the physical
filesystem folders and files for these web applications are picked up by the
filesystem wildcard specification. The only piece I'm missing is the IIS
virtual folders themselves with their various application settings.

Since the target IIS environment will be a clone of the source, is there any
way that I can script this, or use a DOS command to export the IIS metadata
on the source machine, package it for deployment to the target and then
reimport it to IIS on the target in order to recreate the IIS environment
from the source on the target? Unless I can find some way to do this, I'll
need to contantly keep revising the Wise installation script as IIS virtual
directories are continuously created, modified and removed. I'd like to find
some way to port the IIS configuration from the source box onto the target
boxes without having to do this constant revision.

Thanks very much for any advice which you can provide!

Joseph Geretz