InstallAware

Hi,

Our installer has several pre-requisites like MSXML6, .Net framework that we need to install prior to deploying our software. It is a requirement that we support a silent mode, using the /s switch, which as we all know suppresses the UI.

When running in normal, interactive mode, with no internet connection, the user will be prompted to resume the broken download or abort, which is OK.

If a machine running in silent mode, does not have internet access (I disabled the network connection), and an attempt is made by a Web Media Block to download the prerequisite, the installer will abruptly exit.

I was wondering if this was by design, or if there was some way of capturing an exit result. I have observed from text logging that MSXML6 is not downloaded until the Check/Install MSXML plugin is invoked but I cannot log or capture the Result variable to inform our users that the download and/or installation failed.

So my log pretty much ends with "Installing XML Parser 6.0"

Some suggestions/advice would be appreciated.

I'm using IA studio 9.

Thanks,

Drew.

Hi Drew,

You are correct; this behaviour is by design.

Ideally if you are looking to perform silent installs, we recommend that you use the uncompressed or single compressed builds - these ensure that all the required runtimes are present at the location, and minimise the chance for errors to occur (and therefore, more successful installs).

However, I can see that you have a good suggestion as to improving the behaviour of the web media blocks when ran in silent mode.

I believe (without having a look at the code I can't confirm this straight away) that you could monitor the exit code of the installer, however, I don't think this would fit the flow that you are looking for. Instead, I think a modification to the plugin architecture to allow you to get access to an install state of a plugin would be more appropriate - so that you can identify in script if a plugin fails (and why) - which would include failure to obtain resources via web media blocks.

Can you confirm this would suffice?

Hi Andy,

I appreciate the fast response.

Instead, I think a modification to the plugin architecture to allow you to get access to an install state of a plugin would be more appropriate - so that you can identify in script if a plugin fails (and why) - which would include failure to obtain resources via web media blocks.

I think this solution would work very well. I would appreciate if you could include me in the list if you need a pre-release tester
In the meantime, the only thing I can do is log a warning at the beginning that the machine may require internet access as single file/uncompressed builds would be too large to deploy.

Regards,

Drew.

Hi Drew,

Thats a good solution - be sure to give them the ability to bail the install at that point

I'll certainly add you to the list of testers!