How to Silent Install

[bobmetelsky]

How does one create a silent (commandline -s -w -i -t -c -h) installion. Doing a search on this site dosnt bring up any technical articles.

Many thanks in advance
bob

[tw0001]

1) first you have to create a response file, use setup /r

2) Then you can copy the setup.iss file that was created (it usually sticks it into your Windows folder) to your folder that contains the setup.exe and media.

3) Then to run the silent setup, just run setup /s

[bobmetelsky]

thats great however I dont have any experience with creating a "response file" can you please elaborate a little

thanks
bob

[tw0001]

as I said, if you run setup /r, then it creates a response file for you. YOU don't have to create anything, the setup does it for you. /r is short for "record" as in record a response file. once the response file is created then copy it to your setup folder and then run the silent setup. Easy.

Ted.

[bobmetelsky]

Hi
Obiviously, Im not clear on exactly where I "run" setup /r from. Untill yesterday we have used installshield to build standard graphical installions only and

So, what Im saying is we are only familliar with
<toolbar> Build
Compile
Run Setup
Build Media

I have no idea where to access or issue the command

setup /r

I appreciate your paitence and hopefull guidance to getting our app to run from command line

thanks
bob

[tw0001]

You're telling me you don't know how to run a setup other than from inside the Installshield environment? What if someone sends you a CD with a setup on it, or you download a setup from the internet? You don't know how to run it? Come on, you've got to start thinking here.

Let's say, as an example, you have a setup in a folder on your C: drive, in a folder called test. So it is stored in C:\TEST\DISK1 . In that folder you will find a set of files including your setup.exe, and data1.cab, etc. So, from the "Start Menu" (bottom left corner of the screen) choose "Run", then type in the command:

C:\TEST\DISK1\SETUP.EXE /R

Allow the setup to run through to the end. After you have done this it will have created a file called "setup.iss" in your Windows folder. Use Windows Explorer to find this file, and then copy it into your C:\TEST\DISK1 folder. Now run the following command:

C:\TEST\DISK1\SETUP.EXE /S

Above, you are now running a silent install.

Ted.

[bobmetelsky]

Great! Thats the explanation I was looking for. You have to admit its not often modern users run installions from the run box. Particullary to create an installion....

Part of the issue here is that we would like to add custom switches to the install EG

setup /x (installs program x)
setup /y (installs program y)
setup /whatever (does something else)

So is it possible to *modify/customise* the switches on a slient install and if so how?

Also, if I run setup /s and an error occurs (file in use - incorrect drive letter...) how gracefully does slient handle that?

All these questions are why its more than setup /s (although I admit I did not know your original procedure on that which I appreciate)

Again thanks for your paitence and help
sincerely
Bob Metelsky

[tw0001]

1. You can run silent mode no matter what (without specifying /s) by adding a line to the [Startup] section of the setup.ini file

CmdLine=/s

2. You can define your own parameters and they will be put in an environment variable called CMDLINE which you can then access from your script. e.g. setup /MYTEST will put MYTEST into your CMDLINE enviroment variable for that process.

3. I don't know how errors are handled in silent mode. You will have to experiment to see what happens.

Ted.