Silent installation of software with installShield Setup

[ashvin]

Hello,

I am working on one software application having sql server database.
I need to uninstall and install the software frequently which takes lot of time, so i want to automate this process to save time.

few points to be considered for this installation process.

- Application setup.exe file install software with "install shield" wizard ( there are 8-10 screen in setup, Title bar of each screen will be like "AppName" - InstallShield Wizard)

- While installation it asks to select database also, so Database should exist prior installation starts, can we make some setup file (ini/xml)like valued to be entered in input field can be fetched from that file.

- While installation setup will deploy SSRS reports also, so need to specify report server address, can we specify the report server address in setup file (ini/xml) so it can be fetched from there

- While setup title bar of each setup screen will remain same like ""AppName" - Install shield Wizard", Will autoIT be able to identify all screen with same name.

Is there any way i can automate this process with AutoIT?
so that my installation can be done faster and easily by one click.

Please advice me, your suggesttions will be very helpful for me.
 
also, please advice if this can be achieved in anyother way.

Thanks in Advance,
Ashvin Parmar

[JLogan3o13]

Hi, ashvin, welcome to the forum. If the installation is an InstallShield setup, that means it is really an MSI file wrapped in a setup.exe. There are a couple of things you can try:

• First and foremost I would try to extract the MSI and just run that. To do this, launch the setup.exe, click Next until you get to the last screen before installation. Then, look in your temp folder. You should see the MSI file and any supporting files. Copy these out, then cancel the installation.
• Once you have the MSI, you can run it in silent mode easily, doing something like this:

ShellExecuteWait("msiexec.exe", "/i <path to msi> /qn")

Some newer InstallShield-wrapped applications have a flag set that will only let you run the installation from the setup.exe file. If this is the case, you can try the normal switches for the MSI (which should carry through):

• /? - run the setup.exe with this switch to see what command line parameters are available to you.
• /qn - try running the setup.exe with this same quiet switch as the MSI. If the wrapper is passing the parameter through to the MSI, it should give you a silent install.

 

Lastly, if these don't work, if this is a commercial installation that you can point us to we can help troubleshoot further. Obviously if it is something private to your company there is only so much we can do. If the above suggestions don't work and it is not something you can share, we can try walking you through automating the install screens.

[ashvin]

Thank you for the idea, I will definitely try this out and share the result.

I know it is hard to give resolution without knowing the application but me also unable to share more details about it. But I will try to share as many details I can.

One more question: is it possible to read the values in AutoIT script from external file (like .ini or .xml) to be provided in setup while installation?

Once again thank you for your support.
 

Ashvin

[JLogan3o13]

Yes, you can look at the IniRead section in the help file for some examples.