Silent Install for Retain's GroupWise/Outlook Plugins

Is there a way to implement a silent install of the Retain GroupWise/Outlook plugins?

Our plugins do provide a silent install option.

GroupWise

When running the installer, use the following switches.  Make sure that the GroupWise client AND Notify are unloaded; otherwise, the installation will not be successful.  At that point, all the user will see is a progress bar.

• /url=http://[server IP address or DNS name]/RetainServer
• /hidemenu (this hides the standard GroupWise archive - if you wish to do so)
• /SILENT (run without user intervention - this will fail if the /url is not used)

Example:  "C:\Software\Retain\tools\groupwise\Win32 Client Archive Plugin\Retain.Archive.Plugin.2013.9.16.143.exe" /url=http://10.1.5.30/RetainServer /hidemenu /SILENT

Outlook

Msiexec has to be used.  It also requires .NET and Visual Studio tools for Office.

The /hidemenu  and /SILENT options are only applicable to the GroupWise installation.  The only option that applies to the Outlook plugin is /url=http://[server IP address or DNS name]/RetainServer.

You can either run Setup.EXE //url=http://[server IP address or DNS name]/RetainServer or edit Setup.msi to include the /url option.

Here is a script that a customer wrote wrote and shared with us in hopes that it might help someone else.  The script installs .NET and Visual Studio before installing the Retain plugin.  This is shared as a helpful pointer but is not supported by GWAVA technical support.

REM Set Variables

set retain=C:\Temp\Retain
set vc=C:\Temp\Retain\Dependency
set Dotnet=C:\Temp\Retain\Dependency
set script=C:\Temp\


REM Install .NET 4
"%Dotnet%\dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe" /q /norestart

REM Install Visual Studio tools for Office
"%vc%\vstor_redist.exe" /q /norestart

REM Install Retain plugin
msiexec /I "%retain%\setup.msi" /qn

(Sometimes the edited setup.msi (includes URL) works and other times I have to run Setup.EXE /URL ..... )

see also How to use Group Policy to remotely install software in Windows Server 2008 and in Windows Server 2003 

This article was originally published in the GWAVA knowledgebase as article ID 2210.