5 replies to this topic

[VBScab]

I stumbled across an article on an IBM site (and subsequently others) that says you can use a response file with MSIExec, using this format:

[Response]
ADDLOCAL="Server_Primary, Client_Tools"
ALLUSERS="1"
APPS_TEST="1"
ARPCOMMENTS="Development Build"
ARPURLINFOABOUT="www.mycompany.co.uk"

Is this for WI v3.0 and above only? Is it an IBM-specific flavour?

There's nothing on MSDN about it...

I would test it myself, but for the time being my VMWare VMs AND Virtual PC VPCs are out of action

[Stefan Krueger]

This is nothing standard, probably some IBM homegrown way to pass properties into msiexec. You can do that on the command line however:
msiexec.exe /your.msi ADDLOCAL="Server_Primary, Client_Tools" ALLUSERS=1 APPS_TEST=1 etc.

[VBScab]

Yes, the c/l route is obvious but the product in question has 40 or so properties whose contents depend on a particular requirement. It was my intention to build a little stub program or script to create a response file for each product "stream".

The other problem with the c/l is that some of these properties can be lengthy and I seem to recall somewhere that MSIExec can choke on c/l beyond a certain length.

[Zweitze]

Well, Windows has a limitation: the command-line can have no more than 2048 characters. It's not exactly documented, but this number keeps popping up.
I assume IBM wrote its own Msiexec replacement, enumerating all keys from a section in an ini-file. You could do so too, your program should call MsiInstallProduct() to start the installation.

[Stefan Krueger]

yes, or create a transform that sets these properties (aka "response transform")

[JakobSvendsen]

Hello

i dont know if it is any help, i see your post is pretty old.

but i have created a script that does almost this.

i have posted it on my blog, for everyone to use.

I hope it helps, if not you, then somebody else

http://blog.coretech...edded-vbscript/

Best Regards

Jakob Gottlieb Svendsen