Creating a software distribution package

(imported topic written by mellis200091)

Hello,

In our previous patch management solution, I was able to write a batch file that would basically call on the msiexec command to install an msi file, which would install our anti-virus software. We did not get the Anti-Virus part of BES because the program is a managed program that is hard coded to go get it’s updates from a different source automatically, however, I would still like to use BES to install the software. I went through the Windows Software Distribution Wizard, but I keep getting a fail when trying to accomplish this. The msi file is just a part of the whole software package, so the first time I selected just the msi file in the wizard, but this time I selected the whole subdirectory structure. In both cases, it fails.

Here is the output of the latest job (which used the whole subdirectory for it’s upload):

Completed download http://patch.msad.unctv.org:52311/Uploads/f7b1e517486d3958ad5fdc83e617ee9c976a6a07/big1F0.tmp

Completed continue if { (size of it = 81070080 and sha1 of it = “f7b1e517486d3958ad5fdc83e617ee9c976a6a07”) of file “big1F0.tmp” of folder “__Download”}

Completed extract big1F0.tmp

Failed wait “{pathname of system folder & “\msiexec”}”.exe /quiet “{(pathname of client folder of current site) & “__Download/i “Symantec AntiVirus.msi”}””

If anyone has any help on this, I would greatly appreciate it. I am very much the newbie in this right now.

Thanks,

Mike Ellis

(imported comment written by mellis200091)

I believe that I have figured out the bulk of my problems, with a lot of help from those of you on the forums! Thanks! I believe my problem is that the wait command ends up pointing to the incorrect location for the msi file. I’ll play around with that, but if any of you have other thoughts, please post!

(imported comment written by jessewk)

It looks like you’ve just got quotes in the wrong places. Try this:

wait “{pathname of system folder & “\msiexec.exe”}” /quiet “{(pathname of client folder of current site) & “__Download\Symantec AntiVirus.msi”}” /i

(imported comment written by mellis200091)

In the end, to get this to work, I ended up hard coding the path to both the msiexec.exe file and the path to where the msi file lives. If someone could help me figure out the syntax of not hard coding the locations, that would be great!

(imported comment written by jessewk)

does my version above not work? If not, post your action script with the hard coded values and I’ll help you modify it.

(imported comment written by mellis200091)

Sorry Jesse! I had been working on other things, and my hard coded values were working, so I hadn’t changed it. However, I am testing it out right now and will let you know. I did make one change to your code, so it may not work because of that, but I put the /i after the /quiet option and before the " for the path to the msi file.

Thanks!

Mike Ellis

(imported comment written by mellis200091)

Sorry for not posting sooner, Jesse! Your version worked except for the /i and /quiet part that I mentioned in my previous post. Thanks for helping out!

Mike Ellis