The IT Room

Tutorials | Guides | Reviews

When we need to build a brand-new computer Bare-Metal – We need to deploy all the applications as part of a build, we ideally want an unattended install with all our applications. For this to happen we need to download the relevant application for example we will use 7Zip. We will be deploying MSI package, but we can deploy exe files as well. There are a couple of things we need to know, first off can the software be deployed silently, Most MSI files can be but there are exceptions, before committing to deploying any application check online for the silent switches. Most common  switches are /q /n so to deploy 7Zip MSI the command line would be

msiexec.exe /I “7zipinstaller.msi” /q /n

This command uses 3 switches /I which tells the installer to install, /q which means quiet install and /n means do not show the installer installing, and the program to execute the install is msiexec.exe

If you require to install an exe file, we will use OBS Studio as an example. The command would be

obsstudiosetup.exe /S

the /S which is upper case means install unattended and silent. But this is not the same for all exe installers so some research may be required. This import process below will be looking at MSI installer files and we will be using 7Zip as an example. But the same can be done with exe files the command will be different though.

  • Log on to MDT Server using username administrator
  • Download the 7Zip MSI and put it into its own folder called 7Zip
  • Click Start – Open Deployment Workbench
  • Expand the tree and click Applications
  • Right click Applications and Click New Application
  • The New Application window appears, Select New Application with sauce files – Click Next
  • In the Publisher Box if known is the Application Brand like Adobe, you can leave this blank
  • In the Application Name Box type 7Zip
  • In The Version type the Version Number this is optional but make things easier later.
  • Click Next
  • Browse to the Source Files that you downloaded in step 2
  • Click Move the files to the deployment share instead of copying them – click next
  • Amend the name if you want to change it. Click Next
  • In the command line box type the full silent command
    • exe /I “7ZipInstaller.msi” /q /n
  • Click Next – Next again – Click Finish
  • The New Package has been imported to MDT and is ready for deployment.
  • In Deployment workbench – Right Click MDT Deployment Share – Click Update Deployment Share
  • Click Next – Next again – Click Finish