goldy1064
15th June 2005 19:46 UTC

Silent Installer
I am writing an installer that can run silently (with the /S switch) from the command-line. However, I need to the setup application to not give control back to the command-prompt until it has finished execution. Is this possible?

Mæster
15th June 2005 21:54 UTC

If we are speaking about batchfiles, I know the following behavior:

MyNsisInstaller.exe /S

start MyNsisInstaller.exe /S

goldy1064
15th June 2005 21:59 UTC

That is the problem I'm having (the win command prompt won't wait and runs further immediatly). I've tried
Setup.exe /S
and
start Setup.exe /S
but both don't solve the problem. Is there a switch that will not fork when I run Setup.exe?

goldy1064
15th June 2005 22:03 UTC

Nevermind, I did start /? and have put the /WAIT option so I'm running start /WAIT Setup.exe /S and that's working.

Just as a side note to the developers: a good feature would be a command-line switch to not fork the process when the installer file is run (similar to InstallShield's /sms switch).

shouman
16th June 2005 10:50 UTC

your idea is not so bad.

kichik
16th June 2005 17:40 UTC

As far as I know, it's impossible. It doesn't wait because the installer is not a command line application but a GUI application.

Pidgeot
16th June 2005 19:36 UTC

It's possible to code a program to output to a console despite having a form open - see SF projects like DOSBox and ScummVM for examples of programs that do this. If the console part of the program is set to wait until the form no longer exists (either by checking for its presence or by waiting for a callback of some sort), this would do the trick.

NSIS could be coded to have such a feature, but only use it if a certain switch is specified on the commandline. I think a basic implementation would only involove assigning the form to a variable and constantly check if it isn't NULL, but it's not something I've tested.

kichik
16th June 2005 19:52 UTC

Both ScummVM and DOSBox are built as console applications. Look for "/subsystem:console" in here and here.

onad
17th June 2005 09:55 UTC

IDEA:

Build a small console application that starts your Installer
and goes in a waiting loop, then in your installer JUST before all is done you write e.g. and infile and yor starter console detected this in the waitloop. then the console knows that the install is done and can close itself.

Success, be creative and adhere to the API ;)