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Silent install of setup.exe failed.

I have created one outlook add-in project in VS2005. Setup project of this outlook add-in creates setup.exe and MSI package. Setup.exe project job is to install .Net runtime, VSTO runtime and primary interop assembly if not installed. I can silently install msi pacakge using misexec command but i cann't perform silent installation of setup.exe. After doing some research i could figure out commands to silently install .Net runtime, VSTO runtime and Primary Interop assemblies each one separately. Now i need help in creation of setup.exe which is also able to silently install. Please help me.

sandeep k Wednesday, September 23, 2009 6:16 PM

Hi Kira,
I have gone through your reply. And I have understood product.xm files of bootstrapper packages. It contains argument for executing them in silent mode but the requirement is providing both options without silent mode and in silent mode. Which i don't think is possible through product.xml file.

And I can't port my project to VS2008 because i am using VSTO2005 which mandates VS2005.

Therefore I created batch file which contains four commands to execute each of my prequisite and application in silent mode.

dotnetfx.exe /q:a /c:"install /l /q"
vstor.exe /q
msiexec /qn /i office2007pia.msi
msiexec /qn /i myapplication.msi

But I have observed msiexec process stays in memory for quite long time after executing all the above four commands. Do you have any solution?

Marked As Answer bysandeep k Thursday, October 01, 2009 5:54 AM

sandeep k Wednesday, September 30, 2009 2:36 PM

Hi sandeep,

First thank you for coming back and tell me the solution you found. Change product.xml won’t meet the requirement for both silent mode and non-silent mode. Hope the information I have given you can do some help for your further development.

As for the question why msiexec process stays in memory for quite long time, the following thread explains the reason.
http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/netfxsetup/thread/056cf1c7-4732-4b4d-9216-df6dedfab3a2

The Windows Installer service (msiexec) stays running for 10 minutes after performing any installation activity. This is designed to be a performance enhancement in case multiple MSIs are installed sequentially.

Sincerely,
Kira Qian
Send us any feedback you have about the help from MSFT at fbmsdn@microsoft.com

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Marked As Answer bysandeep k Thursday, October 01, 2009 5:54 AM

Kira Qian Thursday, October 01, 2009 2:04 AM

Hello sandeep,

According to my research, VS 2005 setup bootstrapper does not offer an option to install prerequisite packages in silent mode. These prerequisite packages themselves have silent modes though.

Please look at a related topic.

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/netfxsetup/thread/0ad3ff70-3f98-4556-90c1-f9f30777e22e

The following document discusses the product.xml and silent install parameter

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/cc163899.aspx

Turn to “Figure 2 Product Manifest for the .NET Framework 2.0�? you can see the code as following

<Command PackageFile="dotnetfx.exe"

Arguments=' /q:a /c:"install /q /l"'

EstimatedInstalledBytes="21000000"

EstimatedInstallSeconds="300">

These command arguments is for silent install purpose. Hope this helps you.

And this document indicates VS 2008 setup project use silent install mode by default.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/xhz1cfs8.aspx#cpconsetupexebootstrappersampleoperationsanchor2