I was wondering if the Community Server MSI installer can be used with msiexec and what parameters can be passed in to overwrite the default values associated with an unattended installation?
Skatematic,
Although I haven't gotten to use Msiexec recently, I don't see why not. Have you tried it and had any errors?
Thanks,Ryan
Ryhoward.com - Community Server from the Support Side of things. Technical tips and ideas for CS users.
No I haven't tried it because I do not know the parameters to pass in. Basically we are trying to setup an automated installation of Community Server. You can do this using msiexec but to do it properly we need to know that list of parameters that we can specify and pass into msiexec so that no UI is shown and the installation just happens. Is your msi created in such a way that this is supported? If it is, what are the parameters ti automate the install?
Hi skatematic,
Take a look at this article on how to go about using MSiexec, it should give you a general idea on how to run the MSI using that app.
-Ryan
I guess we are having a missunderstanding here. I know how to use msiexec in general. My question is more related to how I use it with your MSI and have your MSI accept parameters such as:
Our goal is to know the options we want to pick in the MSI, but we don't want to have a person pick the options, we want it to be scriptable. We want to call your msi something like this:
msiexec /i CommunityServer2008.msi INSTALL_PATH=”..” SQL_SERVER=".." IIS_WEBSITE=".." ...
Does that make sense? So just to clarify again, we want to call your MSI using msiexec and make the installation process 100% autmated with a list a parameters which your MSI accepts so that we can set all the options in your setup UI.
Skatamatic,
I don't believe passing variables for sql parameters and text fields for msiexec is possible.
It is possible. We do it all the time, you just need to write your MSI to support it. I would suggest that you guys look at the WIX toolset for creating MSI's. This toolest makes it quite easy to create parameterized MSI's like I mentioned.
http://wix.sourceforge.net/
more specifically:
http://wix.sourceforge.net/manual-wix2/wix_xsd_property.htm
The property element allows you to pass in values and set defaults for when no value is passed in. I am not sure if this tooleset will allow you to do all the things you currently do, but it should.
Tutorial:
http://www.tramontana.co.hu/wix/
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