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Yahoo! Messenger 7 Silent Installation


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Original Topic Question: (Removed from post #1 and re-posted at post#5.)

This first post in this thread will eventually be edited to contain the entirety of the final solution. For now it only contains tested methods. Please read the thread and add what value you can. Thanks!

Yahoo! Messenger Installation Steps

  1. Obtain a clean Yahoo! Messenger installation executable:

    1. Download msgr7us.exe from the Yahoo web site
    2. Run msgr7us.exe
    3. Deselect several invasive options on page 2 of 6 of the installation dialog by clicking on Custom Install:
      NOTE: These are my suggested settings:
      YahooMessenger2of6.jpg
    4. Accept EULA on page 3 of 6 of the installation dialog.
    5. Continue through the installation dialog to page 5 of 6 and STOP.
    6. Manually create this folder: %ProgramFiles%\Yahoo!\Installs, and open a copy of Windows Explorer to it.
    7. Upon clicking [Next] on page 5 of 6, monitor the folder above; during the web installation's download, ymsgr7us.exe (total size=8453 KB) will be copied here.
    8. From the folder above, copy the file above to a working folder. This is the complete Yahoo! Messenger installation file, minus the other Yahoo! application installations.
    9. Uninstall Yahoo! Messenger to continue working with and testing the silent installation.

    10. Install Yahoo! Messenger silently and unattended (from a .cmd script for now): See thread below for current status...

      ...to be continued...
Edited by DarkShadows
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Original Topic Question: (Removed from post #1 and re-posted here.)

Has anyone successfully silently installed Yahoo! Messenger 7?

Also, I think I should more clearly state some objectives here, since I want to do more than simply install the application.

OBJECTIVES:

  1. Obtain a clean Yahoo! Messenger installation executable
  2. Install Yahoo! Messenger silently and unattended (from a .cmd script for now)
  3. Disable launching of Yahoo! Messenger immediately after installation.
  4. Disable launching of Yahoo! Messenger upon user log on for all Windows XP users that are:

    1. Already-created
    2. To-be-created

    3. Pre-Configure Yahoo! Messenger Preferences for all Windows XP users that are:
      1. Already-created
      2. To-be-created

[*] Re-direct the installation log file to a chosen folder.

ATTEMPTED ACTIONS:

Attempted installing Yahoo! Messenger 7 with the following (Inno Setup) parameters:

Start /Wait "Yahoo! Messenger" ymsgr7us.exe /SP- /VERYSILENT /NORESTART  /LOGFILE=C:\Installs\Logs\YahooMessenger.log

OBJECTIVES STATUS:

  1. Accomplished—See post #1 this topic thread.
  2. Accomplished—Yahoo! Messenger installs quietly (i.e. without any prompts or progress bars).
    NOTE: The soution is not yet included in Post #1 because the ultimate command line switch combination may change to meet other objectives.
  3. Failed—Yahoo! Messenger launches immediately after installation is complete; need to suppress this.
    For now I'm using the following to kill the process:
    TaskKill /F /T /IM YPager.exe > Nul


    I believe the registry entry below may be responsible for automatically running the application immediately after it's installed. (I'm testing on a fully booted Windows XP operating system with a user logged in, and the application runs immediately after installation.) However, I believe during an unattended installation, the application would most likely will not launch until after both the installation is complete and a user has logged on. So perhaps deleting the registry setting below from each user's profile, before they log on would suppress the auto-run.



    [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
    "Yahoo! Pager"="\"C:\\Program Files\\Yahoo!\\Messenger\\ypager.exe\" -quiet"
    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


    I plan on importing this registry entry into each user's profile as they logon to avoid the auto-run. However, I'm not sure this will work (since it may delete the registry setting after Yahoo! Messenger runs), or impact future users:



    ; Remove registry key to automatically run Yahoo! Pager at user log on.
    [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
    "Yahoo! Pager"=-
    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00


  4. Incomplete—The objective above must succeed before this one has a chance of succeeding.
  5. Incomplete—Importing preferences for single, known YahooID works well. However, each YahooID's preferences are stored under a registry subkey for that YahooID. This will require developing a script that either edits these registry settings or a .reg file for each YahooID. Perhaps this script should prompt the user for their YahooID when they first log into windows after the application has been installed? The only current action taken toward this objective thus far is to save a registry file with the desired settings from a known user's account.
  6. Incomplete—The installation log defaults to %ProgramFiles%\Yahoo!\Messenger\INSTALL.LOG. If it cannot be re-routed through installation switches, this log file could always be copied to the desired location in the installtion script after installation is completed. However, installation switches would be preferred.

NOTE: The results above (in this post) are occuring during testing on a running Windows XP operating system, I have not yet tested in an UA XPCD installation.

Any insights into these objectives are welcome. I'm not at my office that has Virtual PC installed this week, but I'll be testing this further. After all objectives are met, I will update the first post of this thread accordingly.

Edited by DarkShadows
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ABBREVIATIONS:

  • YM = Yahoo! Messenger
  • RunKey =
    [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
    "Yahoo! Pager"="\"C:\\Program Files\\Yahoo!\\Messenger\\ypager.exe\" -quiet"


  • XP = Windows XP Professional (everything should work the same for Windows XP Home or Windows 2000)
  • UA = Unattended Installation

OBJECTIVES STATUS:

  1. Accomplished—See post #1 this topic thread.
  2. Accomplished—YM installs quietly (i.e. without prompts or progress bars).
    NOTE: Solution is not yet included in Post #1 because the ultimate command line switch combination may change to meet other objectives. for now, the switches are:
    Start /Wait "Yahoo! Messenger" ymsgr7us.exe /SP- /VERYSILENT /NORESTART


  3. Latest Analysis
    • YM launches immediately after installation completes, when installing on fully-booted XP.

      From other posts in this thread (i.e. I haven't verified these results) this also occurs during XP UA.


    • YM may accomplish the auto-launch as a result of the installation program itself, or via a registry value located under RunKey.

      At this time, it's uncertain "which came first the chicken or the egg." My educated guess (based on the behavior in the bullet below) is that the installation program triggers the auto-launch.


    • It is clear now that whenever a user first launches YM, the RunKey and "Default" preferences registry settings are created as a result.

      This has been verified on a PC with three user accounts;
      only
      the account that orginally installed YM, has the YM "Default" preferences and RunKey registry settings. The other two XP user accounts do not auto-launch YM when first logging into XP after YM installation (one account is limited, the other an administrator). However, once these other two users manually launch YM, the YM "Default" preferences and RunKey registry settings are immediately created.

      Attempted Work Arounds:

      • Use the following script command to kill the YPager.exe process during installation:
        TaskKill /F /T /IM YPager.exe > Nul

        This works to kill the process once, but it will launch again upon next log on for the user account that installed YM.


      • Import the following registry file to avoid future YM auto-launch:
        Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

        ; Remove registry key to automatically run Yahoo! Pager at user log on.
        [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run]
        "Yahoo! Pager"=-

        The above registry setting will only affect the user account, under which YM was installed (which if installed from CmdLines.txt is the .Default User). Immediately after YM installtion, the other user accounts do not have yet this RunKey registry setting to delete, and will not have it until after the first time the user manually launches YM.


[*] Incomplete—Currently working on default registry settings that may avoid the RunKey registry setting creation the first time the user launches YM (in Objective E. below).

[*] Latest Analysis

  • Importing preferences for single, known YahooID works well.
  • It appears as if the YM "Default" preferences are stored under [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Yahoo\Pager] in various subkeys and values.
  • Once a user logs into YM with a YahooID, a new key is created [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\yahoo\Profiles\YahooID]. This key is initially empty, but after the user customizes preferences, this key contains several subkeys and values that seem to override the YM "Default" preferences.

    If the above theory about YM's "Default" preferences registry settings holds true, I believe a simple script that runs once for each user, importing a .reg file with "Default" YM preferences, should achieve this objective. Such a script would have to execute prior to the user's first manual launch of YM. I do not yet know how to accomplish this. If the "Default" preferences approach does not work, perhaps the script could prompt the user for their YahooID when they first log into XP after YM has been installed, and simply import a preferences registry file customized for that YahooID. Could possibly modify the Start Menu icon to point to a script that checks for this.

    Will attempt to:

    • Save a registry file with the preferences from a known user's account.
    • Try to coerce YM to use the preferences from the known user's account as "Defaults" by relocating where these settings are placed in the registry
    • Develop a script that imports a imports HKCU .reg file with the new "Default" preferences registry settings.

[*] Incomplete—The installation log defaults to %ProgramFiles%\Yahoo!\Messenger\INSTALL.LOG. If it cannot be re-routed through installation switches, this log file could always be copied to the desired location in the installation script after installation is completed. However, installation switches would be preferred.

This file can be copied to another location, but cannot be moved. This file tells the YM uninstaller what to remove from the PC, and if it cannot be found, the uninstaller errors.

NOTE: The results above (in this post) are occuring during testing on a running Windows XP operating system, I have not yet tested in an UA XPCD installation.

Any insights into achieveing any of these objectives are welcome. I'm currently not working at my office that has Virtual PC installed this week, but I'll be testing this further. After objectives are successfully met , with no issues, I will update the first post of this thread accordingly with the step-by-step how to guide.

Edited by DarkShadows
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