Deploying Groupwise Client
Brian Kesting
Has anyone used PDQ Deploy to distribute the Groupwise email client?
I have gotten an MSI install to work, and work silently, but am not sure how to edit the MSI to create a custom MST file with specific configuration options set.
The .exe installer calls a setup.cfg file, but I cannot seem to get a silent installation with that method to work properly.
Anyone ever try this?
Thanks
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Hi Brian,
I haven't deployed it before but if it's an MSI file then you should be able to do one of two things.
1) Modify properties by using the parameters PROPERTY=VALUE (e.g. ALLUSERS=1)
2) Create a transform file (.mst) and then pass that transform file via the parameter TRANSORMS=nameoffile.mst
A great way to create a transform file is to use the free Orca by Microsoft. After installing Orca right click on the .msi file and select Edit with Orca. Then (inside Orca) go to Transform menu and select New Transform. Then make your changes (modifying Properties or other values in the different tables). When you've made your changes go back to the Transform menu and select Generate Transform. Save the .mst file to the same location as your Groupwise msi. Add the TRANSFORMS=FileName to your parameters and you should be good to go.
The values that you add/remove/modify should be documented on Novell's site.
Thank you for the suggestion. I'm still looking for what to edit inside the MSI, but I did get an install to go pretty much the way I wanted with the setup.exe and a customized setup.cfg file.
Thanks for your help!
Hey Brian,
I've been going through this a bit too. I had it working fine in for GW 14.2.0, but had a fight with it today trying to update to 14.2.1. Here's what I've had to do so far, but please let me know if you get the msi to work properly...
1. Put the client directory from the full download in your Repository.
2. Edit the setup.cfg file and add it to the client\win32 directory.
3. The first steps in my package are a message to my users and a command step that stops the GW processes. Just using: %SYSTEMROOT%\System32\taskkill.exe /f /im grpwise.exe /im notify.exe
4. Do an Install step and point it to the "install.bat" file they have in the win32 directory. They actually have it set up so that it installs the required prerequisite C++ redistributable packages and the client.
5. Make sure that you set "/silent" as your parameter for that .bat file.
6. Include the Entire Directory! Check the box!
7. Test it on a machine you control!! Every time they update it something goes wonky. With the 14.2.1 update, the bat file left out a line that called the parameter for the 64bit version of the 2013 C++ redistributable package so it just hung. Took me a while to figure out which part was hanging, but its up and running now.
The only other way I've found to do it is to do an Install step for every C++ file, each with it's own silent parameters (and they're different some years), then a step to install the "wse3.msi", and finally a step to install the "groupwise.msi". Again, the GroupWise MSI file REQUIRES the entire directory, so you have to copy 500MB of data for every install. :/
The second way's not bad, I'm just being lazy and didn't want to update it every time they added in another C++ component... LOL.
Good luck!
I haven't worked on deploying GroupWise in quite some time. Thanks for your tips!
I know the last post is a long time ago but ive created a package for Groupwise 18.1.1 but i dont know how to set the language. My installation works but just with the default language english. I need german. I also install groupwise with the install.bat