Switches : Switches are the command line arguments that help to deply application or automate installation.
Silent Installation of MSI Setup
Syntax : msiexec /Option <Required Parameter>
Different option :
1) Administrative install – Installs a product on the network
Syntax : /a <product.msi>
2) Quiet mode, no user interaction
Syntax : /quiet
3) Unattended mode – progress bar only
Syntax : /passive
4) Sets user interface level
Syntax : /q[n|b|r|f]
Where , n – No UI
b – Basic UI
r – Reduced UI
f – Full UI (default)
5) Help information
Syntax : /help
6) Do not restart after the installation is complete
Syntax : /norestart
7) Prompts the user for restart if necessary
Syntax : /promptrestart
8) Always restart the computer after installation
Syntax : /forcerestart
Inno Setup
1 ) /SP-
Disables the This will install… Do you wish to continue? prompt at the beginning of Setup.
2) /SILENT, /VERYSILENT
Instructs Setup to be silent or very silent.
When Setup is silent the wizard and the background window are not displayed but the installation progress window is displayed. When a setup is very silent this installation progress window is not displayed
3) /NORESTART
Instructs Setup not to reboot even if it’s necessary.
4) /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES
Instructs Setup to suppress message boxes. Only has an effect when combined with ”/SILENT” and ”/VERYSILENT”.
5) /NOCANCEL
Prevents the user from cancelling during the installation process
6) /LANG=language
Specifies the language to use.
Visit for more information on Inno setup: http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
InstallShield
To perform a silent installation, you need an InstallShield "answer file", customarily named setup.iss.
Thus, to automate the installation of a InstallShield setup named “setup.exe”, you would first perform one installation by hand to create the answer file:
Here is how it works.
1. Run the installer with the /r ("record") switch and /f1filename switch which allows you to specify a fully-qualified alternate name for the setup.iss file..
setup.exe /r /f1c:\setup.iss
2. Proceed through the dialogs and complete the installation.
3. This will create a setup.iss file and place it at the describe location
4. This file will include all of your responses to the InstallShield dialogs, allowing you to perform unattended installations
5. Simply copy setup.iss to the same directory as the installer executable.
Once you have a setup.iss file, run the installer with the /s ("silent") and /f1filename switch which allows you to specify a fully-qualified alternate name for the setup.iss file. This will perform an unattended installation.
setup.exe /s /f1setup.iss
Nullsoft Scriptable Install System
The Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS) is another open source installation system. It was created by the WinAmp authors to distribute that application, but it is now a general-purpose system which anyone might use.
· /S for silent installation
· /NCRC to suppress the CRC (verification) step
· /D=dir to specify the "output directory", which is where the program will be installed.
These options are case-sensitive, so be sure to type them in upper case.
