Automated Network Installation Of Apps After Ris

[MrLaforge]

Hi everyone,

My First post here so please be gentle.

Firstly thankyou to everyone involved in creating such a large repository of knowledge on this topic, its been most helpful!

Our current situation is that we are creating a new network (our company recently got sold) and we are upgrading to windows 2003 servers, and windows XP desktops(115)

We have RIS working correctly, and we are now at the stage where we need to install applications as part of the RIS process, we are looking to do this automatically after the RIS process has finished.

Now I have read through many of the automated process available, and have settled on runonceex as our preferred method.

When we run a RIS install we create a local user on the machine with an identical username and password to a network user which allows us to run all of our installations from the network.. due to the high volume of traffic that would be required to copy all the software installs locally before running, this is the preferred method.

On reboot after ris, we automatically login as the local user created and then commence the installations via the runonce key..

Here is an example of our current runonceex.cmd

cmdow @ /HID

@echo off

SET PP=\\ftafp01\reminst\Setup\English\Images\WINDOWSXPSP1\$oem$\SOFTWARE\

SET KEY=HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnceEx

SET KEY2="HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon"

REG ADD %KEY2% /V DefaultPassword /D "*******" /f #password removed#

REG ADD %KEY2% /V DefaultUsername /D "swinstall" /f

REG ADD %KEY2% /V AutoAdminLogon /D "1" /f

REG ADD %KEY2% /V ForceAutoLogon /D "1" /f

REG ADD %KEY% /V TITLE /D "FTA Automated Program Installation" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\000 /VE /D "Waiting for Network Components" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\000 /V 1 /D "cmdow @ /HID sleep 10" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\001 /VE /D "Winzip 9.0" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\001 /V 1 /D "%PP%WINZIP9\WINZIP32.EXE /noqp /autoinstall" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\002 /VE /D "Adobe Reader 7.0" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\002 /V 1 /D "%PP%ADOBEREADER7\ADOBEREADER7.EXE /S /V/QN" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\002 /V 2 /D "cmdow @ /HID sleep 30" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\003 /VE /D "Microsoft Office 2003" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\003 /V 1 /D "C:\windows\files\office2k3.cmd" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\004 /VE /D "Oracle Client 9.2" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\004 /V 1 /D "C:\windows\files\oracle92.cmd" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\099 /VE /D "Cleaning Up and Rebooting" /f

REG ADD %KEY%\099 /V 1 /D "%PP%cleanup.cmd" /f

the cmd file for the office install is:

SET PP=\\ftafp01\reminst\Setup\English\Images\WINDOWSXPSP1\$oem$\SOFTWARE\

%PP%OFFICEPRO2003\setup.exe TRANSFORMS=FTA.MST /qb-

Now the issue we are experiencing is that when the machine boots for the first time, winzip and acrobat 7 install fine, however office begins the install, then just disappears and oracle doesn't finish before the cleanup command reboots the system, how can we ensure that the install waits until its completed before it moves to the next task?

We have also tried placing the sleep command in to the install cmd files but still with no success, however once the machine is rebooted and i logon as myself, if i then run the runonceex script and reboot it works as advertised.. is there something critical that I am missing here?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

Paul

[un4given1]

Make sure you are using the MSI file to launch the installs. If you use the Install.EXE file it simply just launches the MSI file and closes. So, your batch file will think that it's completed. Let me know if this works or doesn't work for you.

[MrLaforge]

Thanks for that information, however it also appears that the cmdow@ /HID command was causing the script to lose focus and move to the next item, even though CMD was still running, by removing the hide command and replacing it with minimise, the script now runs as we like.

Thanks very much for the assistance though!

[un4given1]

Here's some other information you may find useful. I spent 2 years of my life working with RIS. Here's a post I made on another site some time ago. http://forum.osnn.net/showpost.php?p=361286&postcount=2

Hope you find it useful.

Later!

[gbmacman]

Can you post the zip file that was on the other post? Thanks

[un4given1]

Wish I still had it... sorry It's been quite some time.

[MrLaforge]

Ok everything works perfectly when we remove the cmdow /HID command, so we can now successfully build, however to make the whole process neater we would like to hide or at least minimise the installer windows.. has anyone else had the issue of cmdow causing the runonceex reg method to skip through installations? is there a way around this?

[mother]

We use a similar setup at our place of work, but we use GPO to release our software through AD.

If you create a new policy in AD, you can specify which applications to install under Computer Configuration\Software Settings or User Configuration\Software Settings.

Using this you can add software and automatically uninstall it when you remove it from the GPO. You can specify when to install it (logon, first run) and it's all pretty seamless. You can even specify transfer files and patches to apply (in .msp format).

Have a look at www.AppDeploy.com - there's a whole host of information about publishing apps there.

I hope this helps,

Jim