HOWTO: Use Setup Wizard Command Line Arguments for Silent Mode

ID: Q182470

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Visual Basic Standard and Enterprise Editions for Windows, version 5.0

SUMMARY

When using the Visual Basic Setup Wizard to create an application distribution set, you can perform a silent install and uninstall of the application through the use of command-line arguments. This article documents those command-line arguments.

MORE INFORMATION

WARNING: ANY USE BY YOU OF THE INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS ARTICLE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. Microsoft provides this information "as is" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose.

Microsoft does not provide technical support for this feature for the following reasons:

This is an untested feature and therefore may not work as expected in some circumstances.

This feature may not exist in future releases.

This is an undocumented feature. We are documenting it in the Knowledge Base for use at your own risk.

Silent Install Usage

The following command-line syntax allows for a silent install:

c:\mydir\setup.exe -s myapp.log

The command line above assumes "c:\mydir" is the folder that contains Setup.exe. The "-s" switch allows for the silent install, and "myapp.log" is the .log file created to track all modifications the installation makes.

Silent Uninstall Usage

The following command-line syntax allows for a silent uninstall:

St5unst -n "C:\Program Files\MyApp\St5unst.log" -f -q

NOTE: The quotation marks are required when there is a space in the path or file name.

The command line above uses the version-specific uninstall executable with the "-n" switch, which allows the uninstall executable to run from a command line. The St5unst.log file contains all pertinent information on the installation of the application. The "-f" and "-q" switches must be used in conjunction to force an SMS uninstall, which is silent by default.

NOTE: Installing an application using the NT Schedule service with the silent or SMS parameter will not work and is not supported. The Schedule service does not create a complete copy of the environment when it launches the Setup. When Setup attempts to check for free disk space, the test fails because the TMP and TEMP environment variables are not present. Attempting to work around the problem by setting the variables in a batch file, such as the following example, also fails:


   Set TMP=C:\TEMP
   Set TEMP=C:\TMP
   Setup -q MyLog.txt

When running the Setup as an NT Service, the only alternative is to run it in interactive mode.

Additional query words: kbDSSTools kbVBp500 kbDSupport kbdss

Keywords : kbGrpVB
Version : WINDOWS:5.0
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbhowto