Software Deployment

You could maybe try the following:

- start by installing Orca, we'll be doing some table edits, it's part of the microsoft SDK, found at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=A55B6B43-E24F-4EA3-A93E-40C0EC4F68E5&displaylang=en. If InstallTaylor can do table edits , that's fine too, I never actually used it.
- open your MSI with Orca and go to the Control Table, this table contains the "intelligence" behind the install dialogs.
- Find the checkbox and textbox that you want to set values for, write down the properties that are linked with these elements (property field in the table).
- If there are properties linked to these controls you should be able to find them in the Property table
- Now for Orca, go to the "transform" menu , select "new transform"
- change the parameters to the values you'd like
- Go to the Transform menu again -> Generate transform, save as an .mst file

Now try applying your transform to your installation using msiexec /i <MSI PATH> TRANSFORMS=<MST PATH> /qb-

Or if they're public properties (name is all caps) you can pass them along on the command line directly.

You may create a response transform using any tools available to you that allow you to edit/create a transform from your MSI (DO NOT EDIT THE MSI DIRECTLY IF A VENDOR MSI). I am not sure how you can push it with GP I leave it to you.

Hope it helps with your task.

If you don't have one of the two major vendor's tools for authoring/editing MSIs (i.e. Wise or InstallShield) this will be painful, since it will involve using a tool like Orca or InstEdit to create the necessary table changes without the benefit of a GUI. The basic idea is to identify the properties whose values get populated by dialog box choices and set those properties directly in the transform. This really isn't the place to go through that process step-by-step, I'm afraid.

Hercules,

Try using Install Tailor to customize your MSI without going to the manually putting inputs in MSI. You need to find or at least make it work as a standalone version because it is embedded in the products of Wise. I have used this approach before when I was so innocent about MSI packaging and I was able to create a transform without using Wise, Installshield or Orca.

If you have no tools to create an MST, I would look at the Properties table of the MSI with Orca and see if you can command line some of your changes. The vendor may have put some properties in there that you can change via the command line.

A real life example of such a case is with Adobe Reader 9:

msiexec /i AcroRead.msi DISABLE_CACHE=1 DISABLE_BROWSER_INTEGRATION=YES SUPPRESS_APP_LAUNCH=YES /qn

If the vendor didn't leave you much to work with, then I'd make a case to management for getting some tools. Sounds like you need them.

InstallTailor won't create a transform without the main Wise executable WFWI.EXE being present so I guess you must have created you transform by magic. Let us all know the spell you used and we can save our clients some money. :)

Somehow, a stand alone Install Tailor was existing in the net. Not sure if somebody was able to detach it from Wise or Wise has changed it to something that will not be possible without the main. I think it was 5 years ago.. Wise will not like it for sure if they have found it.. :)

I found a thread, but it is already 3 years ago and the link is not working on my end. You can check it out. http://www.msfn.org/board/lofiversion/index.php/t65681.html