I am at the moment making an unattended installtion of Windows XP, and so far i got most stuff working, though i have a problem on how to install Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Enterprise edition, Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 and Adobe Illustrator 8.0 in unattended/silent mode.

I simply can not find out how to install the two microsoft programs, and i have not been able to find a guide on the internet (maybe im looking the wrong places), and as for Illustrator 8.0 i followed the same procedure as with some other Adobe programs (Photoshop indesign etc, they all use InstallShield), but for some reason i get an odd error.

I was speculating that it might be because i install it all from a server, but seeing as the other adobe programs are installed nicely i can not find the problem.

Anyone had the same problems with Illustrator or suggestions on how to install the MS programs i would greatly appreciate it.

SQL can be installed using the Unattended InstallShield Method, described here somewhere (in the guide, perhaps?). You basically run setup with a switch, input all the data, and finish. Instead of creating the install, a silent install file is created, which you will now need to pass to setup when calling it. The guide is more informative than my 3 sentences ... I'm not sure about VS, but a quick try will tell you for about 1 minutes work. Don't know about illustrator either. If you get it working for VS please let me know. I've had a lot of luck with google searching for APPNAME and "Unattended install".

I have tried to install both visual studio and MS Sql with the silent install switches but neither works, i also tried the small MS Sql edition where i was able to get it working, but with the Enterprise version it wont do as i say :/

Still no luck with Illustrator :/

for visual studio 6 Visit Here

i could have written a how to myself, but this explains better

hope this helps

Thanks, the Visual Studio guide works, now i only need the two others

Okay i now made Illustrator work.

It seems that it uses an old version of installshield (or something like that), which cannot comprehend more than 21 Characters in the path name, so since i install from my server i did the following in my batch file:

net use u: \\server\install$\Adobe\Illustratorcd\AdobeIllustrator8 /persistent:no
start /wait u:\SETUP.EXE -s -f1"u:\setup.iss"

I made a similiar solution for AdobeTypeManagerDeluxe, though i still have problems with it asking me to register, and throwing me the readme file.