Silent Install for Viewers

[Dave M]

How does one put together a silent install for the Office viewers. I checked
by running xlviewer.exe /? and its says to use /Q to run something silently
but it does not work. We need to install the viewers on those PCs that do
not have office via an SMS package. Any help would be appreciated

 

[Michael Silverman]

Hi Dave,

Specific to the Excel 2003 viewer I did the following:

xlviewer.exe /C /T:<some temp folder>

That extracts all the files (MSI, CAB, etc...)

I then wrote a Windows Installer command line script to install the app...

msiexec /package <location_of_extracted_viewer_files>\XLVIEW.MSI
/passive /norestart /l*v <path_to_log_file\xlview-install.log

Basically that will install the viewer using Installer v3.x parameters
(/package), show the progress bar (/passive), no restart (/norestart)
and verbose log to the xlview-install.log file.

I tested the Excel Viewer MSI install using Windows Installer and it
worked beautifully.

One note though if you are looking to do the Visio Viewer. It is
packaged just like Office, meaning you would be better off doing an
Administrative install first and then build the command line to install
the application from the Admin share. Ie. SETUP.EXE TRANSFORM=<> /qb
etc...

Mike.

 

[Michael Silverman]

Hi Dave,

Specific to the Excel 2003 viewer I did the following:

xlviewer.exe /C /T:<some temp folder>

That extracts all the files (MSI, CAB, etc...)

I then wrote a Windows Installer command line script to install the app...

msiexec /package <location_of_extracted_viewer_files>\XLVIEW.MSI
/passive /norestart /l*v <path_to_log_file\xlview-install.log

Basically that will install the viewer using Installer v3.x parameters
(/package), show the progress bar (/passive), no restart (/norestart)
and verbose log to the xlview-install.log file.

I tested the Excel Viewer MSI install using Windows Installer and it
worked beautifully.

One note though if you are looking to do the Visio Viewer. It is
packaged just like Office, meaning you would be better off doing an
Administrative install first and then build the command line to install
the application from the Admin share. Ie. SETUP.EXE TRANSFORM=<> /qb
etc...

Mike.

 

[Michael Silverman]

Hi Dave,

Specific to the Excel 2003 viewer I did the following:

xlviewer.exe /C /T:<some temp folder>

That extracts all the files (MSI, CAB, etc...)

I then wrote a Windows Installer command line script to install the app...

msiexec /package <location_of_extracted_viewer_files>\XLVIEW.MSI
/passive /norestart /l*v <path_to_log_file\xlview-install.log

Basically that will install the viewer using Installer v3.x parameters
(/package), show the progress bar (/passive), no restart (/norestart)
and verbose log to the xlview-install.log file.

I tested the Excel Viewer MSI install using Windows Installer and it
worked beautifully.

One note though if you are looking to do the Visio Viewer. It is
packaged just like Office, meaning you would be better off doing an
Administrative install first and then build the command line to install
the application from the Admin share. Ie. SETUP.EXE TRANSFORM=<> /qb
etc...

Mike.

 

[Michael Silverman]

Hi Dave,

Specific to the Excel 2003 viewer I did the following:

xlviewer.exe /C /T:<some temp folder>

That extracts all the files (MSI, CAB, etc...)

I then wrote a Windows Installer command line script to install the app...

msiexec /package <location_of_extracted_viewer_files>\XLVIEW.MSI
/passive /norestart /l*v <path_to_log_file\xlview-install.log

Basically that will install the viewer using Installer v3.x parameters
(/package), show the progress bar (/passive), no restart (/norestart)
and verbose log to the xlview-install.log file.

I tested the Excel Viewer MSI install using Windows Installer and it
worked beautifully.

One note though if you are looking to do the Visio Viewer. It is
packaged just like Office, meaning you would be better off doing an
Administrative install first and then build the command line to install
the application from the Admin share. Ie. SETUP.EXE TRANSFORM=<> /qb
etc...

Mike.

 

[Michael Silverman]

Hi Dave,

Specific to the Excel 2003 viewer I did the following:

xlviewer.exe /C /T:<some temp folder>

That extracts all the files (MSI, CAB, etc...)

I then wrote a Windows Installer command line script to install the app...

msiexec /package <location_of_extracted_viewer_files>\XLVIEW.MSI
/passive /norestart /l*v <path_to_log_file\xlview-install.log

Basically that will install the viewer using Installer v3.x parameters
(/package), show the progress bar (/passive), no restart (/norestart)
and verbose log to the xlview-install.log file.

I tested the Excel Viewer MSI install using Windows Installer and it
worked beautifully.

One note though if you are looking to do the Visio Viewer. It is
packaged just like Office, meaning you would be better off doing an
Administrative install first and then build the command line to install
the application from the Admin share. Ie. SETUP.EXE TRANSFORM=<> /qb
etc...

Mike.

 

[Michael Silverman]

Hi Dave,

Specific to the Excel 2003 viewer I did the following:

xlviewer.exe /C /T:<some temp folder>

That extracts all the files (MSI, CAB, etc...)

I then wrote a Windows Installer command line script to install the app...

msiexec /package <location_of_extracted_viewer_files>\XLVIEW.MSI
/passive /norestart /l*v <path_to_log_file\xlview-install.log

Basically that will install the viewer using Installer v3.x parameters
(/package), show the progress bar (/passive), no restart (/norestart)
and verbose log to the xlview-install.log file.

I tested the Excel Viewer MSI install using Windows Installer and it
worked beautifully.

One note though if you are looking to do the Visio Viewer. It is
packaged just like Office, meaning you would be better off doing an
Administrative install first and then build the command line to install
the application from the Admin share. Ie. SETUP.EXE TRANSFORM=<> /qb
etc...

Mike.

 

[Michael Silverman]

Hi Dave,

Specific to the Excel 2003 viewer I did the following:

xlviewer.exe /C /T:<some temp folder>

That extracts all the files (MSI, CAB, etc...)

I then wrote a Windows Installer command line script to install the app...

msiexec /package <location_of_extracted_viewer_files>\XLVIEW.MSI
/passive /norestart /l*v <path_to_log_file\xlview-install.log

Basically that will install the viewer using Installer v3.x parameters
(/package), show the progress bar (/passive), no restart (/norestart)
and verbose log to the xlview-install.log file.

I tested the Excel Viewer MSI install using Windows Installer and it
worked beautifully.

One note though if you are looking to do the Visio Viewer. It is
packaged just like Office, meaning you would be better off doing an
Administrative install first and then build the command line to install
the application from the Admin share. Ie. SETUP.EXE TRANSFORM=<> /qb
etc...

Mike.

 

[Michael Silverman]

Hi Dave,

Specific to the Excel 2003 viewer I did the following:

xlviewer.exe /C /T:<some temp folder>

That extracts all the files (MSI, CAB, etc...)

I then wrote a Windows Installer command line script to install the app...

msiexec /package <location_of_extracted_viewer_files>\XLVIEW.MSI
/passive /norestart /l*v <path_to_log_file\xlview-install.log

Basically that will install the viewer using Installer v3.x parameters
(/package), show the progress bar (/passive), no restart (/norestart)
and verbose log to the xlview-install.log file.

I tested the Excel Viewer MSI install using Windows Installer and it
worked beautifully.

One note though if you are looking to do the Visio Viewer. It is
packaged just like Office, meaning you would be better off doing an
Administrative install first and then build the command line to install
the application from the Admin share. Ie. SETUP.EXE TRANSFORM=<> /qb
etc...

Mike.

 

[Michael Silverman]

Hi Dave,

Specific to the Excel 2003 viewer I did the following:

xlviewer.exe /C /T:<some temp folder>

That extracts all the files (MSI, CAB, etc...)

I then wrote a Windows Installer command line script to install the app...

msiexec /package <location_of_extracted_viewer_files>\XLVIEW.MSI
/passive /norestart /l*v <path_to_log_file\xlview-install.log

Basically that will install the viewer using Installer v3.x parameters
(/package), show the progress bar (/passive), no restart (/norestart)
and verbose log to the xlview-install.log file.

I tested the Excel Viewer MSI install using Windows Installer and it
worked beautifully.

One note though if you are looking to do the Visio Viewer. It is
packaged just like Office, meaning you would be better off doing an
Administrative install first and then build the command line to install
the application from the Admin share. Ie. SETUP.EXE TRANSFORM=<> /qb
etc...

Mike.