Group Policy Wizard

To create setups that work with Group Policy / Active Directory deployment, on the Design tab, in the Tools group, click Group Policy. This wizard creates a single MSI file that may be used in corporate deployment scenarios.

1. Enter the full path to your already built setup project in the InstallAware Setup to Package into Single MSI field. Note that the wizard works only with compressed setups (web deployed or single file compressed setups, as well as patches).
2. If there are any command line parameters you wish to pass to your setup, enter them in the Command Line Parameters field. Note that the single MSI file will automatically pass in the necessary command line parameters for silent installations and uninstallations where applicable, to facilitate seamless operation with Group Policy deployment. If there are any additional parameters to pass, you may enter them here. The parameters entered in this field are recorded into the CMDLINE public MSI property of the new single MSI file, located inside the Property table. Before Group Policy deployment, editing the Property table using MSI transforms or a direct MSI table editor to change the value of the CMDLINE property is allowed. In this way, a custom command line may be used for different deployment scenarios.
3. In the Output for Single File MSI field, enter the full path and file name of your new, single MSI file that will be created by the wizard. The folder specified for the MSI file must already exist.
4. In the Group Policy Display Name field, enter the name of your product as you wish for it to appear in the managed installation interface.
5. In the Group Policy Display Version field, enter the name of your product as you wish for it to appear in the managed installation interface.
6. Click OK to create your single MSI installer, and deploy your setup using Active Directory.

Using the Group Policy Wizard from the Command Line

You may also run the Group Policy Wizard from the command line. The wizard requires exactly five command line parameters in the correct order. The first parameter is the setup to package. The second parameter is the command line parameters to pass to the install. The third parameter is the output MSI file. The fourth parameter is the display name, and the last parameter is the display version. If you do not wish to pass a particular command line parameter to your setup, use a space wrapped in double quote signs. If your paths include spaces, also remember to enclose them in double quote signs on the command line.

pgplwiz.exe "C:\My Project\Release\Web\My Project.exe" " " "C:\My Project.msi" "My Project" "1.0"

In the above example, the wizard will wrap the installer at the location C:\My Project\Release\Web\My Project.exe inside the file C:\My Project.msi and run it without command line parameters.

pgplwiz.exe "C:\My Project\Release\Web\My Project.exe" "/s" "C:\Temp\setup.msi" "Setup" "2.0"

In the above example, the wizard will wrap the installer at the location C:\My Project\Release\Web\My Project.exe inside the file C:\Temp\setup.msi and run it silently.

By using the Group Policy Wizard from the command line, you will enable it to participate in unattended builds. When run from the command line, the wizard does not display any prompts or require any user interaction.

The wizard returns the following codes to indicate success/failure:

• 0: Process completed successfully
• 1: Error during process

Notes

• InstallAware recommends you use web builds for all kinds of corporate deployment, including Group Policy / Active Directory deployment. Advertised installations and application self-repair work best with web builds, because web builds cache installation content on the local system, and do not prompt for setup sources. Patching setups later also works best with web builds, where patch source resolution is automatic.
• Web builds also provide an additional line of defense against software theft and piracy. By placing your application content inside web media blocks, and putting the web media block files on your corporate network, you render your setups void when running outside the corporate network, since they will attempt to download web media blocks from the corporate network, and fail when setup is running outside of it.
• Read the $GPOPATH$ variable inside your script to determine if Group Policy deployment is being used. When this pre-defined variable is empty, Group Policy deployment is not being used. When this variable is not empty, Group Policy deployment is being used, and the variable contains the full path of the folder containing the single file MSI package. This path information may then be used to read additional configuration settings from that distribution folder.