silent install

Mar 31 2009

Unattended Installs – Adobe Flash Player

Flash Player Logo

Adobe Flash Player

Adobe’s Flash Player is one of those “essential” tools for anyone using the Internet.  You don’t notice how many web sites are using it until it isn’t available and you suddenly find heaps of web sites that just don’t work properly.

Unfortunately, it’s yet one more of those bits of software that doesn’t let you just download the full installer.  Instead, you download a small program that downloads the rest and installs it.  If you’re persistent with your Google searching you’ll probably find a full installer somewhere but, in the end, my own need was sufficient to sign up to distribute the Flash Player.  It’s not all that onerous to do this and does have the advantage of getting you the full installs easily.

There’s a Flash Player for Internet Explorer and for Firefox as different products.  If you’re supporting both browsers on a computer you’ll need to install both.  I always install Firefox before I install the Flash Player so just install both versions, like this:

AdobeFlashPlayer_ie_v9.exe /S
AdobeFlashPlayer_moz_v9.exe /S

(This article is part of a series about the build disc I use to standardise system builds. The series starts here and this particular article follows on from this one.)

By David • Unattended Installs • • Tags: , , ,

Mar 31 2009

Unattended Installs – Adobe Shockwave

Adobe Shockwave PlayerAbobe Shockwave Player

Adobe’s Shockwave Player is another one of those small utilities that’s widely used on the Internet and, as a result it’s hard to ignore installing it as part of a standard computer build.  Like Google Earth, Adobe would prefer that you download a small installer program that then completes the download and does the install.  This is fine for one computer but when you’re doing it multiple times per week it’s not as useful.

There are ways to find the full installer but, in the end, I found the easiest way to get hold of it was to sign up to distribute both Shockwave and Flash Player.  If you’re going to be doing standardised installs in some quantity it’s worth it.  You get access to the full installers (including .msi versions if you want them).

I’m still installing an older version at the moment (v10) but will be moving to v11 shortly.

Once you’ve obtained your full installer, this will handle the silent install:

AdobeShockwave_v10.exe /S

(This article is part of a series about the build disc I use to standardise system builds. The series starts here and this particular article follows on from this one.)

By David • Unattended Installs • • Tags: , , ,

Mar 31 2009

Unattended Installs – Java Runtime

Java Logo

Java Runtime Environment

Commonly used in web-based applications, Sun’s Java is hard to ignore.  Many computer users won’t even be aware of it until it isn’t installed on a computer they’re using.  The Java Runtime Environment (also known as JRE) is the part that needs to be installed for these applications to work.

Sun’s JRE is available here.

This method was tested and working with Sun JRE v6 update 13.

Here is my install command:

jre-6u13.exe /quiet /norestart

(This article is part of a series about the build disc I use to standardise system builds. The series starts here and this particular article follows on from this one.)

By David • Unattended Installs • • Tags: , , ,

Mar 31 2009

Unattended Installs – Firefox

Firefox Logo

Firefox

The choice in web browsers.  Personally, I prefer Firefox over Internet Explorer.  I’ve found it more reliable and stable.  When I’m in web developer mode I also prefer Firefox as it handles rendering of web pages and CSS far more consistently than IE.

Firefox is available here.

This method was tested and working with Firefox v3.0.8.

There’s a few different hints about how to do an unattended install out on the Internet.  This seems to work for my purposes:

Firefox_3.0.8.exe /S /ira

(This article is part of a series about the build disc I use to standardise system builds. The series starts here and this particular article follows on from this one.)

By David • Unattended Installs • • Tags: , , ,

Mar 30 2009

Unattended Installs – Google Earth

Google EarthGoogle Earth

Google Earth is the current pick of the bunch for viewing the world through the wonders of satellite imagery.  Most of our customers are keen on this one so it’s hard to avoid making it part of our standard build.  Unfortunately, Google doesn’t really help out on this one.  For starters, it’s actually not easy to get a current full version of the Google Earth installer.  The installer you get from http://earth.google.com/ is a downloader as much as installer.  It’s a small program that you then run which then downloads the rest of Google Earth and carries out the installation process.

So, first step is to find a full install version.  I found that Google can help.  Search terms like “full install google earth” will usually find you something.  As far as I can tell, the exact address changes periodically so what gets listed here may not keep on working.  That said, here’s one I found:

http://dl.google.com/earth/client/current/GoogleEarthWin.exe

Once you’ve got your current version, it’s time to do the install.  This is what  I use:

GoogleEarth-5.exe /S /v/qn

(This article is part of a series about the build disc I use to standardise system builds. The series starts here and this particular article follows on from this one.)

By David • Unattended Installs • • Tags: , , , ,

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