"Toucheless" MSI _ through simple GPO object - possible?

  • Thread starter The Flying Dutchman
  • Start date
T

The Flying Dutchman

Dear Colleagues,



First and foremost, let me apologize for the multiple postings here - I am
in a bit of a pinch.





I have used WinInstall LE in the past and found that it can create what I
like to call "touch-less" MSI packages which can easily be assigned to a GPO
inside of AD and deployed out to machines to your heart's content.



I know that perhaps the preferred way is to use Microsoft's Management
Server but that's a bit extreme.



Here is my dilemma



I have an application so it wants you to answer a bunch of Eula things and
the select a few components to install. Fine, I can even use lame old Orca
for that but that sill leaves me with a registry set that I need to merge
into this which is a pain , especially when the coal here is to simply put
that application on a shared directory and have the GPO do the work for me.
Now correct me if I am wrong, but I thought that you could not throw any
special switches as if you were doing a command line install via a GPO? The
goal here is to forego the typical command line switches that go with the
MSEXEX (I believe that what its called) that allows you to install to fifty
different machines.





Now Aside from WinInstall LE, what other utilities are out there which would
allow me to accomplish this as painlessly and simply as possible. The end
goal here is to be able to simply assign the MSI (inside a shared directory
wit the registry settings etc) out to a bunch of machines and voila. Its
done.



I have heard that you can do this with InstallShield which I have access to,
but this seems a bit of an overkill. Others have said to use a batch file
but that seems pretty darn clunky in and of itself. Other than Wininstall
LE's before/after snapshot, can any of you out there recommend something for
me?



I am trying to make the process as simple as possible for a bunch of
administrators who my company still thinks that having an MCSE cert makes
them oh so special. . . I wish that were true.



Any advise you could provide would be greatly appreciated.



The Flying Dutchman
 
G

Guest

Here's some more info on using ORCA application which is part of Windows
Installer SDK
http://support.installshield.com/kb/view.asp?articleid=q107066

Using OCRA create a transform (MST) for the MSI package you wish to deploy
and copy each of the files (MSI and MST) to a share that has minimum ACL's
for authenticated users = read access on the network location. Use active
directory GPO to publish the application silently as a system start up since
this eliminates the need for additional reboots. Using windows server 2003
and the related support tools will be able to create a GPO you can filter on
and publish by workstation silently without any intervention required.
Here's a link to that tool as well as Technical info on the process I am
describing:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/gpmc/default.mspx

This should meet your needs for publishing applications to workstations and
provide upgrade paths since you can upgrade to new versions through the same
tools and upgrade the applications through the GPO object tools.

James Fox
 

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