stonkers
8th July 2008 19:59 UTC

Run External Installer Requiring User Input
I'm guessing this has been hit time and time again. I apologize in advance for not being able to find the posts using a search.

Here's what I'm trying to do: run an external installer that doesn't have any sort of silent mode (i.e. can't be run at the dos prompt with arguments and such). So somehow, I'd have to use execwait or something similar to kick off the exe and then answer it's questions (note that I know the order of the questions and the answers to them in advance) without user intervention. Is this possible?

Thanks,
Eric

Comperio
8th July 2008 20:34 UTC

If you were the one that created the external installer (or had the source code), then you could modify it to accept command line parameters or add the ability to get the answers from an external file.

If you weren't the one to write it, then you may be out of luck. You might be able to use a VBScript with SendKeys commands or possibly use SendMessage comamnds (if you knew the handles to the window and controls), but I've never tried that and not sure it would work. (But, blindly sending keystrokes is never a great idea since any changes to the window--or even a stray message box--could cause major problems.)

stonkers
8th July 2008 22:28 UTC

Yep, if I created it all would be hunky dory...