Performing a "Silent" Installation or Upgrade of the Supportworks Client
| Status: | Published |
|---|---|
| Version: | 1.1 |
| Authors: | HTL QA |
| Applies to: | Supportworks ESP Version 7.4.0 and higher |
Performing a "Silent" Installation or Upgrade of the Supportworks Client
A "silent" installation or upgrade of the Supportworks client is one where the required installation information is provided by command-line options and parameters (including an appropriate "quiet" option) rather than via dialogue-box input. This means that, once the relevant installer command has been invoked, the installation process is totally invisible to the user. You could typically incorporate a suitable installer command line into a script.
Note: The command must be run in the context of a Windows administrator account. In addition, on Windows operating systems that support UAC (normally from Vista onwards in the case of workstations), the administrator must have elevated rights.
From Supportworks ESP Version 7.4.0 onwards, the actual installation-package file processed by the installer command is named swcli7.msi. As it conforms to the Windows MSI standard, any MSI installer can be used to install the package silently. An example of such an installer is Microsoft's own msiexec command. (You can display the syntax of the command-line options and parameters that this installer supports by entering just msiexec at any Windows command prompt.)
For Supportworks client silent installations, the following "public properties" are available as additional parameters on the command line:
ALLUSERS="flag-value" This specifies whether the installation is to be restricted to the user's own account ("Me only"), or whether all accounts on the workstation are to be allowed access to the installed client ("Everybody"). For the "Everybody" option, the flag would be "1", while for the "Me only" option, the flag would be "" (null).
APPDIR="install-path" This specifies the path to the folder in which the client software is to be installed. For per-user ("Me only") installations, this should be a path that is accessible to the current user, which varies with different versions of Windows. For per-machine ("Everybody") installations, the path would typically be C:\Program Files\Hornbill\Supportworks Client 7.x.x on 32-bit Windows systems, or C:\Program Files(x86)\Hornbill\Supportworks Client 7.x.x on 64-bit Windows systems.
AI_UPGRADE="Yes/No" This applies to upgrades, and specifies whether older versions of the client should be removed ("Yes"), or the new client should be installed side by side with the older versions ("No"). For a clean installation, this setting is irrelevant.
SW_SERVER_NAME="server-ID" This specifies the name or IP address of the computer on which the Supportworks server has been installed, and will be applied as the default at login. Without this parameter, the computer would default to localhost - even after an upgrade where the previous installation pointed to another server.
A typical command line for a per-machine ("Everybody") installation using Microsoft's MSI installer might be as follows:
msiexec /i "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\swcli7.msi" /quiet /log "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\silent-install.log" ALLUSERS="1" APPDIR="C:\Program Files\Hornbill\Supportworks Client 7.4.1" AI_UPGRADE="Yes" SW_SERVER_NAME="xserver1"
For a per-user ("Me only") installation using Microsoft's MSI installer, a typical command line might be:
msiexec /i "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\swcli7.msi" /quiet /log "C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\silent-install.log" ALLUSERS="" APPDIR="C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Local Settings\Application Data\Programs\Hornbill\Supportworks Client 7.4.1" AI_UPGRADE="Yes" SW_SERVER_NAME="xserver1"