AutoIT and Medisoft

[GVN]

This may be in the wrong section, and I apologize for that in advance. 
I am looking to use AutoIT to automate the installation process for Medisoft V21. 
It is a Wise installer and has 3 prompts to answer during the installation that do 
not select an option by default. These are 2 license agreements and 1 version selection.
You can select Demo, Basic, Advanced or Network Professional versions of this software. 
Ideally, I will have a script for each version - though Network Professional is the primary 
subject of this idea/project... 

Here is where YOU come in! 
I have no experience with AutoIT. I don't know a single programming language. 
I am willing to do the research to learn both of these things on my personal time 
to make this project work, but I wanted to ask a few questions. 

1. Has anyone used AutoIT with a wise installer and had great success? 

2. Has anyone used AutoIT to install Medisoft? No sense in recreating the wheel, lets talk!

3. Does anyone have great resources to learn the easiest, cut and dry way to script an install with AutoIT. 

I really appreciate any assistance I can get in advance. I love the idea of automation and plan to eventually 
put myself into some sort of program to learn code. I just haven't been in any place financially or mentally to do this yet.

Thanks.

[Danp2]

You should be able to perform a silent install with the Wise installer. Have you researched that as an option?

[GVN]

15 hours ago, Danp2 said:

You should be able to perform a silent install with the Wise installer. Have you researched that as an option?

I have. Unfortunately, because of the prompts, it will not run as a silent install. 
If you have any additional flag suggestions, let me know. I did try /silent and the 
installer would just hang indefinitely.

Thanks. 

[JLogan3o13]

They have a pretty decent user forum. Before stating emphatically they do not support silent install, have you taken a moment to ask that question? Or reach out through whatever support channels your company has purchased with the software? It will definitely make your life a lot easier.

[GVN]

Just now, JLogan3o13 said:

They have a pretty decent user forum. Before stating emphatically they do not support silent install, have you taken a moment to ask that question? Or reach out through whatever support channels your company has purchased with the software? It will definitely make your life a lot easier.

Yes - I have asked the Manufacturer and they basically said that it is not something that is officially supported but that doesn't mean that it isn't possible... I am part of the support channel for companies who purchase the software, looking at options to streamline installations for large roll outs to minimize downtime for customers during version upgrades and such. I don't expect a native way to do this 
with their installer, but from what I've read - AutoIT may be an option to make this happen. 
Or maybe I'm under a completely flawed understanding of the AutoIT product, that is entirely 
possible I suppose... 

[JLogan3o13]

You can certainly do it with AutoIt by manipulating keystrokes and button presses. Just curious, as someone who has been repackaging and deploying software to customers for a number of years; it is quite uncommon for companies not to support silent installers in this day an age.

That said, if you are planning to do large rollouts as you say, I would think you'd want to invest the time into creating a true installation MSI with something like WIX or AdminStudio. You would then have a solid, repeatable product that you can deploy to customers without concern for the potential failings of a scripted install.

THAT being said - if you plan to continue with the idea of a script to manipulate the installation GUI, I would suggest looking at the following in the help file. We follow the "teach a man to fish" motto on this forum rather than spoon-feeding you code, so be sure to try out the associated examples:

• WinActive - allows you to wait until the window you're expecting is present
• ControlSend/ControlClick - commands that will allow you to interact with the window once it is present, sending text or clicking buttons
• Steer clear of Send or MouseClick as these will be entirely too unreliable for what you're attempting to provide to your customers.

[GVN]

1 minute ago, JLogan3o13 said:

You can certainly do it with AutoIt by manipulating keystrokes and button presses. Just curious, as someone who has been repackaging and deploying software to customers for a number of years; it is quite uncommon for companies not to support silent installers in this day an age.

That said, if you are planning to do large rollouts as you say, I would think you'd want to invest the time into creating a true installation MSI with something like WIX or AdminStudio. You would then have a solid, repeatable product that you can deploy to customers without concern for the potential failings of a scripted install.

THAT being said - if you plan to continue with the idea of a script to manipulate the installation GUI, I would suggest looking at the following in the help file. We follow the "teach a man to fish" motto on this forum rather than spoon-feeding you code, so be sure to try out the associated examples:

• WinActive - allows you to wait until the window you're expecting is present
• ControlSend/ControlClick - commands that will allow you to interact with the window once it is present, sending text or clicking buttons
• Steer clear of Send or MouseClick as these will be entirely too unreliable for what you're attempting to provide to your customers.

Sorry, I'll rephrase that. Large for us would be 15-20 workstations, in most cases. However, those 15-20 computers are relied on by practices around the US to operate their clinic. As such, I have come across several who have sent employees home and closed up shop for 3-4 hours to ensure we have time to upgrade and troubleshoot any issues. It would be nice to cut this down by not having to interact with each individual installer. My thought process is I would include all of the scripting for this in a file that I would drag to a share and then copy down to the C:/ of each  machine (the way we run the installer, as well - as many networks I have worked on end up having issues when running the installer from a share) and then run it from there, so that there is no variable in the drive mapping, etc. 

I will start researching the code more and learn how to implement those snippets you provided above. 
I appreciate the help and welcome further advice.

Thanks.