How to interactive a silently installing msi? (Progress data and cancel it)
For some reason, we are delivering a product with our own install GUI, that means, we will run the msi installation silently background.
By using the MSI API "MsiInstallProduct", I can install the product silently, but I have no idea how can I get the progress data of this installation and how can I cancel it.
Anyone has some ideas?
Answer
UPDATE June 2018: Although the tool shown below is no longer available for download, I found it via Wayback machine. I assume it is OK and legal to link to it, seeing as the tool was freeware. Updated links below.
UPDATE: This tool from Wise is regrettably not downloadable anymore. I am not sure if it is OK to distribute it either. It seemed to be a free tool distributed as part of their main Wise Package Studio suite, but I don't think it is open source. I wish they would release it as an open source tool.
The Wise packaging products have been discontinued due to a number of legal issues.
I believe you can get the progress via the MSI API, but if I were you I would just show the progress bar from the MSI itself after invoking the install via msiexec.exe.
MSI supports several different installation levels (full, completely silent, basic GUI, reduced GUI etc...). In your case it sounds like you want a basic UI. This yields a progress bar where you can hide the cancel button, and optionally show a completion modal dialog:
Install silently with progress bar, no cancel button and no modal dialog at end:
msiexec.exe /I "Test.msi" /QB-!
To avoid having to construct these silly msiexec command lines manually, use the msi command line builder tool from Wise: http://www2.wise.com/filelib/WICLB.exe (resurrected from Wayback machine).
Please run the download by virustotal.com for safety.
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