For other applications and installers, theyâ€™re either an MSI wrapped in a single executable (like Acrobat Reader), or a different type of installer (like Nullsoft Installer) and will have their own switches.Â Below are a few of the tricks and tools I use to find out how best to get these applications into â€œsilentâ€ mode as much as possible.
Elevated ShortcutÂ to give the ability to run certain apps without UAC or administrator capabilities on a â€œper shortcutâ€ basis, can upgrade an existing shortcut to have admin rights, or create a completely new one.
Set to snapshot so you can rollback often, nothing but updates installed so you can install all/one app and then roll it back if it works as expected, leaving a clean machine for further testing.
If you can, right-click and â€œWinRarâ€ or â€œUniExtract to Subdirâ€ the installer into a folder, and find the setup.exe or similar in there, and return to Option #1 to see if you can run a silenced install.
This is especially true for applications like Chrome and Shockwave Player that have small â€œhelperâ€ applications for download, but then pull down the â€œrealâ€ installer and run that.Â If a 40MB app has a 300K installer, you know somethingâ€™s up.
Watch out for these, as they will often delete the â€œhelperâ€ app once the full installerâ€™s been downloaded, thus killing your automation by removing the installerâ€™s executable.
Once youâ€™ve got that folder, look for executables and drop them on the USSF again, to see what you can find.
Option #4: Is there a portable version?
Sometimes thereâ€™s no graceful way to install an application, but if you still want to install it quickly to a number of workstations, see if perhaps the developers offer a â€œportableâ€ version of the app.Â One that runs completely out of the installation folder, without any installation necessary.
Note: Portable applications are not listed as installed applications in the registry, so theyâ€™re effectively â€œinvisibleâ€ to utilities that search systems for installed programsÂ Keep that in mind if you plan on going portable with something â€“ you probably wonâ€™t be able to track it effectively.
Fonts can be copied into the target systemâ€™s â€œc:\Windows\Fonts\â€ folder or app by hand if youâ€™re an admin, but if you forcibly copy them in via network access (\\machinename\c$\windows\fonts\), they wonâ€™t show up as usable until theyâ€™re been imported into the registry too.
Once you have your installer figured out, you can add the executable to the Windows Post Installation tool (WPI) found in the \WindowsUpdates folder.
After launching the WPI, clickÂ Config, and find the application youâ€™re replacing, or updating.
Eg: New version of Firefox installation that takes 4 seconds to install isÂ goodÂ â€“ but one that blows away your saved passwords and settings isÂ bad.
Run every app at least once to make sure it really did what you think it did â€“ It may have completed installation successfully, but does it actuallyÂ launchÂ now?
Example: Office 2007 upgraded to Office 2010 can remove Access 2007, even if Office 2010 didnâ€™t include it.
Also watch out for installers/updates that forcibly reboot your system when completed silently.
Is the application installed for ALL users, or just the currently logged-in user/admin?Â Google Chrome is a good example of this.
Try not to leave icons all over your userâ€™s desktop â€“ collect them into a folder under c:\users\public\desktop so they canâ€™t delete them, but can copy them out onto their own desktop or quicklaunch bar if they want to.