Where does Windows Platform Installer (WPI) save the downloaded files in my computer?
I have a network with one server that is connected to the internet and some clients that are not. I want to download and install Microsoft products on my server first and let the client computers download the installer later from the server.
The questions are
- where does the WPI save the downloaded files?
- is it possible to run WPI and force it to install the Microsoft products from the already downloaded files rather than downloading again from Microsoft's server.
Note: Assume there is no license issue, hopely :-)
Answer
It will be cached under %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer\installers if you are on Vista or above, or in the equivalent location on XP (there is no %LocalAppData% environment variable in XP).
If the products are downloaded, they will be installed again from the cached location, unless they were updated, which would change their hash and force Web PI to download them again. Moreover, you can copy the cache folder from one computer to another to the same location and Web PI will pick it up automatically and install products from cached installers.