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Claudiu
Asked: 2010-10-12 09:01:17 +0800 CST

Install .msi from script, detect when install is done

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I'm trying to make an install script. I want to install an .msi file, Python, and then install other things after Python is installed. I already see how to do a command-line install. However, msiexec returns right away, even when the install is still running. How would I detect the completion of an msi install from a batch script?

windows scripting installation automated-install msi

4 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Don't know how Python handles passing commands off to Windows/DOS, but using a plain batch file and the start /wait command the batch file stops and waits until the MSI is done before moving on to the next step.

    For example, to install a main app, followed by a patch only when it's finished, and then a final program once that's finished, drop these lines into a .cmd file:

    start /wait msiexec /i O12Conv.msi /qb
start /wait msiexec /p O12Convsp1-en-us.msp /qb
start /wait msiexec /i mpsetupedp.msi
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  2. It's tricky, and not reliable, but there are ways to monitor for the existence of a specific process in the process list. You write your loop to NOOP while waiting for that process to no longer be there, and then you do your next steps. There are a couple of ways of handling this.

    The SysInternals tool pslist will show processes, though parsing the output can be tricky. PowerShell can access the .NET APIs to do process monitoring through the get-process cmdlet.

    These methods merely monitor for the existence of a process, they can't check for the exit codes and therefore can't know whether or not a process exited normally or in an error state. For that, you'll have to process any MSI logs you specified be generated, or possibly dig in the Windows Even Log for error events.

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  3. In PowerShell, either pipe the result of the direct invocation to somewhere:

    msiexec /i my.msi /qn | Out-Null

    Or use Start-Process with the -Wait parameter:

    Start-Process msiexec -ArgumentList "/i my.msi /qn" -Wait
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  4. A successful install will return any of the 3 codes: 0,1641,3010 depending on the reboot option. Please try to modify your script such that it will in return throw the codes.

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