Microsoft SMS and Commandline installtion

[Dallmer]

Hello all, I have a question,

We are trying to create a SMS install package for Filemaker pro ver6. Does anyone know the command line varible needed to install the license key in an unattended install?

Or better still, does anyone know if you can use MS SMS to install Filemaker pro

Thanks ! I will post if I find an answer

[Lee Smith]

What the heck is SMS?

[Dallmer]

SMS is Microsoft's System Management server, it allows for site management of software and hardware. Allows for enterprise distribution of software.

You can create install packages and have them distributed to users. Build inventories of current hardware specs on your network, etc...

[QuinTech]

Hi Dallmer. I don't know if this helps, but FMP is completely self-registering. So if you copied, for example, the entire contents of the Filemaker Pro 6 directory to a computer without FMP installed, you could run Filemaker with no problem. So if you package these files you could push out FM to network users.

I've never seen SMS before, but i'm thinking it's similar to Novell ZenWorks, and i'm basing my answer on this.

Jerry

[Dallmer]

Thanks Jerry Have not worked with Zenworks, so my frame of reference is limited in that respect.

We had tried to create a package as an unattended install without the having the license key provided and the package failed, the license key is a enterprise wide key and can not be divulged to the user community. Basically this was done as a

[QuinTech]

the license key is a enterprise wide key and can not be divulged to the user community

Oops, i had forgotten that part. Hmmm...

Poking around the registry, i find [HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareFilemakerFilemaker Pro6.0DInstallerInstallCode] with a string key named "I" that shows my entire installation code save the last three digits, which are X'd out. This is for Filemaker Developer 6, hence the "6.0D" node; Filemaker Pro would have just "6.0" instead of "6.0D".

Now i'm not willing to go fooling with that on my system, but i wonder if you tried importing this key through a .reg file and using the full (non-X'd out) installation code, would it work? If so, that would make it unnecessary for the user to know the code.

As i mentioned before, FM is self-registering; but i'm pretty sure that if, prior to running FM for the first time, you were to create the key i described above, FM would not wipe it out during its self-registration, but instead add to it.

So SMS is an installer, or similar? ZenWorks is a Novell platform that creates what they call an AOT file, which is a package that sits on the network that includes all the files needed to run a program, all the registry entries, and anything else the program needs to run. When a user calls a program through an AOT shortcut file on their workstation, all that stuff is rolled out to the local machine, and then when the program is closed, those files, reg entries, etc., disappear. Thus the workstation does not need to have FM installed; instead, it is basically installed every time the user needs to use the app, and is then uninstalled when they're done. Don't ask me what the advantage of this is, because i don't know.

But from what i'm reading in your reply, SMS is something completely different--more like an MSI?

J

[DykstrL]

If you have a site license and CD, look in the Files Folder on the CD for a file named FileMaker Pro 5.5.PDF or FileMaker Pro 6.0.PDF. Open this with Notepad - THIS IS NOT A ACROBAT FILE!

In that file there are places where you can include network preference, UserID, install code - basically all install options. Add any options, etc. then save the file. Then include the file with your MSI package. You can find reference to this in the Readme.doc file on the CD. I think the paragraph is 2.4 Installing FileMaker Pro from the command line

If you did it right, the install will be a silent, non-reboot install.

Good luck

[Dallmer]

Thanks ,

We will try this and let you know!