Silent installation and updates

[wlsmith]

Is it possible to use a silent installation to run an InstallScript update installation?

I have installed my baseline version using a normal installation and want to update the previous installation with a new installation running in silent mode. In debugging the update, the code does not go to the "OnMaintUIBefore" method, as expected, but into the "OnFirstUIBefore" function. The initial installation put the correct entry in the Add/Remove Programs. If I run the update without debugging it runs the "OnMaintUIBefore" function as expected.

Also, if I run the update installation in silent mode it doesn't seem to be reading the setup.iss file even though it is in the same directory.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[RobertDickau]

How are you generating the .iss file to be used by the silent upgrade installation? What command are you using to deploy the silent upgrade?

[wlsmith]

I generated the iss file by running the update initially using the -r switch. I then placed the setup.iss file in the same folder as the setup.exe and attempted to run it using the -s switch. I have finally gotten the silent installation to work by using the -f1 switch with the specific path to the iss file as in.... setup.exe -s -f1"c:\temp\setup.iss". I would not have expected to have to do that with the setup.exe and the setup.iss in the same folder.

Thank you for your response.

[#4]

wlsmith,

Silent mode is designed to enable system administrators to distribute apps to client machines within a network, and therefore isn't really designed for maintenance mode.

However, it is possible to run a maintenance/update mode setup silently, but you would probably have to copy the .iss file to the cached disk1 folder (i.e.) C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{PRODUCT_GUID} to get the setup to read it, since when the product is already installed the setup gets the disk1 files from this location.

As you found you can also specify the path the .iis file manually.

Devin Ellingson
Software Developer
Accresso Software

[harini]

I am trying to run silent install for Install script project. I created .iss file using -r option & copied the file to the folder as setup.exe. But upon running the setup using -s option I am getting setup.log with ResultCode=-3. I am not using any custom dialogs. I am using all sd dialogs. So, I am not using any sdMakeName or SilentReadData functions.
Is there a way I can debug to figure out what is missing in .iss file?

[#6]

You can use the InstallScript debugger when running a silent setup, just specify -d in the command line.

Devin Ellingson
Software Developer
Acresso Software