PDQ Deploy says "Successful" but installation failed - how to troubleshoot?
I have downloaded a trial of PDQ Deploy and have successfully installed three programs with no problem on network computers but one program fails every time I try it. I get an email that says "successful" and the console also says "successful" but the program fails to deploy. I can go to a user PC, open an elevated DOS prompt and paste in the exact same command and switches and the program will install fine.
How can I figure out why it does not work with PDQ Deploy?
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Hi Wires382,
Here are a couple of ways a deployment may finish as successful: 1) The Error Mode is set to continue in the deployment's Options tab for one or more steps and 2) the installer returns a successful code even if it fails. It's the second one that is harder to figure out. It could be that it's programmed to always return the successful install code. It might call another installer to install a program or configure settings that are required to run that is failing, but this failure is not being returned by the main installer.
PDQ will only copy the install file to the local PC. So if it needs additional files, the install may not work correctly. You can select additional files to be copied on the step that runs the installer on the Details tab. You can also write a script to call the installer from the UNC path and the installer will have access to any additional files it needs in that same path since it will run from the server. There are pros and cons to both solutions and you have to find the one that is right for the deployment you are running. A command/batch script would look something like this:
There is also this PDQ documentation that might be useful: https://documentation.pdq.com/PDQDeploy/16.1.0.0/deploy-errors.htm
MinutemanHS - thanks much for you replies. I used your exact script in PDQ Deploy with the path to my install batch file and PDQ Deploy says successful, but the target computer uninstalls the old version of the program and then hangs with msiexec showing in processes all night long until I killed it - but the new version of the program does not install. I ran the exact same batch file from the computer and the program installs perfectly.
Any other suggestions?