Joe User 99

Well...its a bit complicated. The part that installs the MSN Toolbar, sets the homepage, etc is a custom action that is not called until you click on the finish button. (they are actually actions called when the button is pressed!) So unattended installs will be more difficult. It should be possible to move the custom actions out of the finish button and back into the main sequence of events, and then you could call them by setting the appropriate public properties...but I don't have time right now to do it. Also another thing to note about this MSI, is there is no Admin install....AT ALL! those tables are empty in the MSI. I have found switches for the MSN Toolbar setup that let you install and uninstall... but the install is not completely silent, it installs silently, but then it launches IE to the "Get Started" page upon completion, just like normal. If there is intrest, I will add the switches to the Application Switches thread.

Never used LANDesk, but the command line should be: msiexec /p <patchpath>\MAINSP3ff.msp /qn

While I am not using it during the windows setup, I am deploying this hotfix unattended on our network. Here is the commandline I am using: "\\<server>\<share>\Q832483.EXE /C:"dahotfix.exe /q /n" /q"

It's the new Corporate version. Released a couple of days ago.

AutoIT will do it on 2k/XP systems. http://www.hiddensoft.com/ However, it's not an application, it's a scripting language. You can create your script to lock/unlock the mouse&keyboard, then compile it into an executable though. And it's free.

This is the Microsoft Installer attempting to repair a broken install (or what it's logs show as broken). It is most likely just some missing registry entries. Just point it to the MSI file that it is looking for, and it should fix itself and go away.

Exactly, use the Custom Installation Wizard from the ORK Tools. Here....explained a little more: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;308294

Yes, you can still use a transform. I have only had one product (Roxio 5) that had a problem with a tranform once I did a admin install. And that was solved by recreating the transform from the admin install rather than the media install.

Done the same way in a MST. I don't think you really understand what a MST is. It is just a set of changes. It takes all the changes that you make and saves them. Then when you specify the transform in the commandline, it is telling it to apply those changes to the MSI. That way you are making the changes, but not affecting the original source media. Basically, it just stores your changes in a seperate file, rather than directly applying it to the MSI.We are not trying to say in any way, that what your are suggesting is wrong, so please don't be upset. There is nothing wrong with the way you are doing it. A MST just keeps you from accidentally messing up the original MSI. We are just trying to add a little safety tip to your suggestions. Again, I use Wise Package Studio Professional, so it may be different.... But if you follow your directions for Adobe, or whatever, follow every step, then rather than saving the MSI, you choose Save As.... and save it as a MST.

The MST file doesn't do anything to the directories or files. You make all the changes the same, just like you mention, except when you save it, you save it as a MST instead of a MSI. With the MST file, the only switch is TRANSFORM=<name of MST> that is it, no ther switches. And I don't understand "you still need to register". Register what? And... This can ALL be done in the transform. The only difference is it becomes start /wait %...%\...\program.msi TRANFORMS=custom.mst It takes no longer to create a transform than to modify the msi. Its all done in the same interface (at least in Wise)

Its AutoPatcher XPhttp://www.autopatcher.com/ That's gonna take a while, I think the Feb release was 275mb.

Since the majority of these guys are running these during setup, switches shouldn't really matter (hence the whole point of running it silent). But you should only need one switch and that is the transform. All the others can be added to the transform. This includes all the silent, force reboot, registry changes, whatever. A switch is only needed to specify something other than the default. Another thing a transform allows you to do that modifying the MSI doesn't? Have different configurations, without having to duplicate the source files. You use one set of media, with multiple transforms. Especially helpful for large suites such as MS Office. I can have individual transforms that install each app individually, or the whole suite, and I only need the 1 set of media with multiple transforms. I also deal with MSI's everyday, in a corporate environment. Actually, that is what I do, I build and deploy installs. Except I use Wise Package Studio Professional.

Uncompressed Admin install 46.6mb Max compression Self extracting RAR 16.8mb Using WinRAR 3.30 Max Compression is the only non default option used. Tried again, using the solid archive option, and still small. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it is an admin install. In an admin install, the files are all extracted from the cabs or msi, and placed into their respective folders. Maybe by doing it this way, it allows them to be compressed more. Give it a try. once you have the extracted files, do a setup.exe /a it should ask you to specify a network location. Just give it any folder, doesn't have to actually be network.

I tested it here at work, I created a self extracting RAR of the full Adobe Reader 6.01 (even added a custom transform) and it came out to 16.8 on max compression. (This is from a Admin install without the addon Album Starter crap.)

Any reason you can't just create a self extracting RAR from the original extracted files? Then you can specifiy the folder to extract to and all.

I don't know how many individual ones I have....but I have a dedicated drive for them and so far I have @ 54 Gigs.

I imagine you could modify the ramdisk plugin from BartPe to work. It's a .sys file with some registry entries. I've never tried it though.