2003 SP4 MSI Installation (Group Policy)

[JohnCarr]

I have created a network installation of SolidWorks and applied SP4 to it. I want to install SW’s to computers using AD group policy. I have created a group policy on an OU and added a software package under computer configuration.

When the client PC is booted SolidWorks installs ok BUT doesn't install SW Office. I have tried using Orca to create a transform (MST) file to modify the installation but it doesn't work!

Has anyone done what I'm trying to do?

Thanks
John

 

[MadMango]

I not a network Guru, but I did ask one of our IT guys your question. Below is his response. I hope it can shead some light on your problem.

"I don't know enough about AD or SolidWorks administrative installation points to give him a good answer, and I have no idea what Orca is, aside from a whale... but from what I've seen with Windows Installer custom configurations, everything is dependant upon what the products implementation of the installer will support.

For example, when creating a custom administrative installation point for Office 2000, there's a lengthy list of command line arguments that must be given to setup.exe, which will launch a special instance of the installation wizard where you get to choose all of your configuration options for Office. Once you're done, it copies all the files to the administrative installation point, and creates the MST file with the configuration options for the installer, so that it installs Office silently with the components you've specified when the special administrative installer was run.

My experience with trying to create administrative installation points with Office turned me away from wanting to do this with any other product. Especially one like SolidWorks where service packs are issued so often. It completely depends on how well the installer for the specific product behaves, but here's what I was running into with Office:

I create the admin install point. I install some seats. A service pack is released, so I update the admin install point. Now, all the seats that were installed before the service pack was applied to the admin install point don't recognize the admin install point as the original source anymore, and you can't add or remove components from the installed seats anymore... in some cases, you can't even uninstall the product.

SolidWorks warns that using the MSI installation method will allow changes, but it will require the installation source to make changes to the installation.... this tells me that it probably does behave like Office, and may face the same issue I just described.

Anyway, if he really wants to do this, he'll have to read SolidWorks' documentation for custom administrative installations, if there is any. If he's sure he's got a valid MST file for use with SolidWorks, he still may need to make sure that his commandline switches for the unattended setup are correct. the MST file usually needs to be part of the setup command for it to be used."

Good luck.

MadMango
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."
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