The Guide To MSI Switches For Silent Software Installation ITNinja

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At its core, a software installation is little more than a really big file copy, along with a set of registry changes. Indeed some installations perform special

activities like installing drivers or registering ActiveX controls. But at the end of the day, even these 'special' activities are still not much more than file copies

and registry updates.

I wrote an article for this site not long ago titled. In that article, I talked about some of the ways to automate this process. In every way, one of the biggest

tasks is in getting that software installation to run silently. In a silent installation, everything that happens after you initiate the installer occurs without

interactively prompting the user. Some dialog boxes might pop up, but they'll disappear on their own. Eliminating anything that requires the user to enter

data or click a button is what makes a silent installation so powerful for automating software installation.

an installation.

Installations with the other file extension, MSIs, tend to be much easier. That's the case because MSI-based software installations all share in a universal

switch structure. Sending instructions to an MSI-based software installation requires learning only a single syntax. That syntax looks generally like this:

msiexec.exe /q /l* {logfile.txt} /i {setup.msi} {NAME=Value}

MSI Switches, the Guide

Let me first spend a minute breaking down what you're seeing in the string above.

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/l* {logfile.txt} ' This third optional switch tells the installer to log everything to the file found at logfile.txt. You can insert a full path into logfile.txt if you wish.

While this switch is functionally optional, the log file data it produces becomes invaluable in troubleshooting an installation that doesn't complete correctly.

Since the installation is silenced, the data in this log file often contains the only clues you'll ever get about what problems the installation is experiencing.

/i {setup.msi} ' This fourth switch points Windows Installer to the MSI file that contains the software you want to install. The contents of {setup.msi} can be

either local to the machine or remote via a UNC path. This UNC path support is extremely useful, because it enables you to store your software installation

files on a file server somewhere and invoke them over the network.

msiexec.exe /q /l* logfile.txt /i Install_Flash_Player_10_Active_X.msi REBOOTYESNO=No

But wait a minute: That command line above contains all the universal switches one might expect, except it ends with this fairly non-standard

'REBOOTYESNO=No' switch that's standing in for {NAME=Value}. Where did that come from?

Sleuthing for Custom Properties

As I mentioned earlier, each MSI has its own custom name and value pairs that answer questions the installation requires. Those pairs might identify an

install folder, or add a license key, or in this case instruct the installer to prevent a post-installation reboot. The hard part with these name and value pairs,

In fact, even getting the Orca software requires multiple steps. You'll first need to download the Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework

4. Once downloaded, install the SDK's debugging tools. You'll find Orca, which is itself a separate installation, in \Program Files\Windows

SDK\7.1\Bin\Orca.msi. Double-click this file to install it to your management desktop.

Once within Orca, you can open an MSI and peer around to locate its custom settings. Take a look at Figure 1 where you'll see that the