Silent or unattended install - 32 bit client

(Last modified: 26Feb2003)

This document (10016356) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

goal

fact

Novell Groupwise 5.2

Novell GroupWise 32-bit Client

Formerly TID 2924855

This information is for GroupWise 5.2 only.

For GroupWise 5.5 see TID 10051017 (NOVL3164).

symptom

Can the GroupWise client be installed without user input

How do I set up a silent install of the GroupWise client

How do I set up a Unattended Install of the GroupWise client

fix

A normal (non-silent) installation receives the necessary input from the user in the form of responses to dialog boxes. A "silent" or unassisted installation takes place completely behind the scenes; it doesn't display any user interface, so there is no need for a user to monitor the installation and provide input via dialog boxes.

The installation program for the GroupWise Win95 client, SETUP.EXE, was written with InstallShield3, a C-like, object-oriented programming language. Using the proper startup switch, 32-bit install programs written in InstallShield can be run in silent mode if you provide the proper values and returns for the installation choices in a script or "response file." A response file is a plain text file, so you can create it in Microsoft Notepad or any other text editor. A response file contains the information similar to that which an end user would enter as responses to dialog boxes when running a normal InstallShield3 installation. InstallShield Silent reads the necessary input from the response file at run time.

The format of response files resembles that of an .INI file, but response files must have .ISS extensions and must contain a silent header section, an application header section, a dialog sequence section, and a dialog data section. The response file you create must be named SETUP.ISS and saved in the same directory as the *.INS file for setup. For GroupWise 5, this directory is the Win32 directory found in the software distribution directory.

NOTE: Although you can create the SETUP.ISS file manually, you can also have InstallShield create it by running the GroupWise SETUP.EXE using the -r option (e.g., ..\client\win32\setup.exe -r). This causes InstallShield to write all your selections into a SETUP.ISS for you. It will write the file to the [windows] directory. I.E. c:\winnt

After you have created the installation and the response file, you are ready to run a test of the installation in silent mode. When running an installation in silent mode, be aware that no messages are displayed. Instead, a log file named SETUP.LOG captures installation information, including whether the installation was successful. You can review the log file and determine the result of the installation. The default location of the log file is the directory where the installation's .INS file resides. To verify if a silent installation succeeded, look at the ResultCode value in the [ResponseResult] section of SETUP.LOG. If the value is 0, the installation succeeded. If the value is -1, the installation failed.

After you verify the validity of your *.ISS file, users can run GroupWise Setup in silent mode by setting up a shortcut pointing to
\CLIENT\WIN32\SETUP.EXE as the target and including the -s command line switch to run in silent mode. This launches the client setup and tries to load SETUP.INS and SETUP.ISS (the response file) from the same directory. The log file SETUP.LOG is created in the same directory.

Options
Users can specify a different name and location for the SETUP.LOG using the -f1 and -f2 switches with SETUP.EXE. The -f1 switch specifies the alternate location and name of the response file (.ISS file) .
   Example
       setup -s -f1 c:\install\gwwin32\alternat.iss

The -f2 switch specifies the alternate location and name of the log file (by default, SETUP.LOG log file is created and stored in the same directory as that of SETUP.EXE).
   Example
       setup -s -f2 c:\install\gwwin32\alternat.log

Do not leave a space between command line switches and options.command line switches/options are not case sensitive.

Troubleshooting Note:
In one case copying the SETUP.ISS from the C:\WINDOWS directory to the \CLIENT\WIN32 directory and only using the "-s" switch caused the silent install to begin working correctly.

For more information on running InstallShield in silent mode, please consult InstallShield's web page at http://www.installshield.com
/">http://www.installshield.com
.

note

1) When in silent mode, the workstation install is always the first item in the dialog. Starting with GroupWise 5.1, the placement in the dialog of workstation install v. the standard install depends on which option was chosen during the previous installation. By forcing the workstation install to be the first item in the dialog when in silent mode, you don't have to worry about which install option was used by each user.

2) The GroupWise 5 setup program detects applications for ODMA integration. In silent mode, you can script turning all integrations off but you can't script turning them all on. You can also script turning integration on for specific applications if you are sure all users using the script have those applications installed. To facilitate this scripting, the setup program was modified beginning with GroupWise 5.1 to always access the integrations dialog. This prevents the script from failing if no integrations are found and the script is written to integrate one or more applications. If setup fails in this instance, no InstallShield error is generated. The setup program fails to complete and must be run again with a valid script or in normal mode.

3) If an error occurs during the setup process, no error or dialog is given to the user. InstallShield Silent will clean up after itself and uninstall what has already been installed.

4) When scripting a workstation install, you will need to make the following changes:

   [Dlg Order] section changes:
   Reduce the count by 1 because the AskDestPath dialog is not used.
   Remove the Dlg3=AskDestPath-0 line.
   Renumber the other dialog entries appropriately.

   [SdAskOptions-0] section changes:
   Change the last line to be
   Component-0=Workstation Install (uses 5 MB)

   Remove the entire [AskDestPath-0] section from the script

document

Document Title:	Silent or unattended install - 32 bit client
Document ID:	10016356
Solution ID:	1.0.6569791.2314444
Creation Date:	10Sep1999
Modified Date:	26Feb2003
Novell Product Class:	Groupware

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