Administrative Installs

[Gareth Owen]

Is there a specific syntax for specifying the command line parameters for an IA installation when it is wrapped in an Administrative MSI install.

We need to give the admins access to a number of the variables within the IA script,

The normal IA installation commandline would be

install.exe /s TARGETDIR=xxxxxxxxx setFeature1=TRUE setFeature2=FALSE....

This same functionality needs to ba accessible when using the msi created by the group policy wizard.

Is this possible and can I have an example command line.

[sinan]

The Group Policy Wizard creates MSI's with a fixed command line. If this doesn't work for admins, perhaps you can use some Read from Text File or Get Ini File Settings commands to allow customizing group policy deployments.

[Gareth Owen]

Are any of the variables accesible? Is it possible for the customer to specify the target directory for the administrative installation?

[sinan]

Because the Group Policy MSI is generated using a fixed command line, new command line options cannot be used with the Group Policy MSI. However you can use an INI file or any other file to read information while setup is running, to work around this limitation.

[sinan]

Also, the Group Policy Wizard may be redistributed to end-users so they may customize their setup command lines at their end.

[Gareth Owen]

Nice thought, but we are now having to use the Web installs to allow modification, which i believe cannot be used by the Grp Policy Wizard

I will investigate .ini files

Any chance of adding this functionality to future versions

[sinan]

No, web installs work just fine with the Group Policy Wizard Just make sure the target machines have access to the web media blocks - either on a corporate file server, or on a download server...or even a physically hard-coded path!

[Gareth Owen]

That sounds fine,

What syntax do you need to use to hard code these paths.

In all cases the web blocks will be on the installation media, as we are not actually doing any web deployment. the only reason to do this is to get round the need to extract the installation files when modifying the application, as is the case with the single exe install.

I would like to hard code the web blocks to the same directory as the installation, for both standard installs and group Policy MSI's.

Any ideas greatfully recieved.

[Gareth Owen]

I have tried using the Grp Policy Wizard to generate an MSI from a web deployed build. and it creates the MSI ok, but whenever i try to run it, it tries to download the web blocks, which are located in the same directory as the MSI.

I am assuming that hard coding the paths to the $SFXPATH$ should work, but I have not managed to get it working yet.

Cheers

[MichaelNesmith]

Hi Gareth,

Not to worry - in the URL field, just specify the paths to the web media blocks using the form \\\\server\\share\\web media block file name.7zip, or something similar...

In fact the URL field can take http://, ftp://, \\\\server\\share, and drive:\\folder type paths, all will work!

[Gareth Owen]

I am still having trouble getting an admin MSI to run using a Web Build.

Every time I try to run the admin installs, it complains that the download from the web has failed, and gives you the option to resume.

I had to remove the /s option as with this the install just ended without doing anything.

It also does not seem to log anything at this stage.

I have run the msi using

msiexec /i msiname.msi CMDLINE="/l=log.log"

The original msi is compiled using the /s command.

This runs the install and brings up the GUI but it fails when trying to apply the install.

1) The web packages are located in the same directory as the msi
2) I have changed the url of each package to be $SFXPATH$\\pckname.7zip

[MichaelNesmith]

I think you are making a mistake in specifying the web media block paths. The URL should refer to the absolute physical path of the web media block file. You may use variables in this field but $SFXPATH$ will not refer to the folder where the MSI file is found, because of the way Group Policy and the special GP MSI work.

[Gareth Owen]

Ok, that would explane it,

Next question,

How do I code the path in such a way that the MSI installation will find the web packages.

Please bear in mind that we wish to send the installation to our customers so we will have no control on exactly where the web packages will be installed. we will only be able to use paths relative to the msi.

[Gareth Owen]

Ok, after a lot of play, I have managed to get to the situation where I have used a variable in the location of the web packages $WEBPATH$

This i can then pass into the msi using the command line
msiexec /i msiname.msi CMDLINE="/s WEBPATH=<full path to web packages>"

Cool

Only slight problem I have now is that this only works if there are no spaces in the path.

If you have spaces in the path you need to use double " around the path.

e.g

msiexec /i msiname.msi CMDLINE="/s WEBPATH=""d:\\Administrative Installs\"""

[MichaelNesmith]

I think msiexec has a way to allow quotes inside its fields...or maybe it was you can use single quotes on the outside to allow double quotes on the inside. Not entirely sure But also remember each long folder path also has a short folder path representation. For instance,

Code: Select all

c:\\program files

is also accessible as

Code: Select all

c:\\progra~1

making the form typically:

Code: Select all

<first six letters of path>~<1..n>

Hope that helps!