4 replies to this topic

[asrinivas]

hi ,

Please tell me what is administration installaition and how it is implemented.
the command setup.exe /a what it does.? after that how the users can install the application in local system....

regards,
asrinivas.

[Stefan Krueger]

Administrative instalaltion basically unpacks all the files from your setup CABs (plus the .msi file itself) and copies them to a folder you specify. It is intended for system administrators who want to provide those files on a network share from where users can then install. This also gives users the chance to select "run from source".

[antyagi]

Stefan, If do not want the files to be unpacked by administrative installation but keep the files packed in a cab file. Something like in MSOffice administrative installation. Is there something additional that MSOffice might be doing ?

[asrinivas]

[Stefan Krueger]

antyagi: as far as I know the CABs will always be unpacked, that's how it's designed to work. Copying over the CABs could be done by a setup.exe, or a batch file, for instance.

asrinivas: Administrative install will unpack the CABs. If you don't use CABs there's no difference here. However in an administrative install you could also set some properties, or call custom actions.

Administrative install (msiexec /a) is handled by the Windows Installer engine. It doesn't know about your setup.exe and any prerequisits that your setup.exe might install. You could use a custom action copy the setup.exe and prerequisites files, too. However administrative installs are typically used in managed environments whare the administrator would often pre-deploy any prerequisites, instead of leaving this to your setup. Also, normal users typically don't have the permissions that are required to install prerequisites such as the .net framework.