Can't complete Office 2010 installation

[OneJeremias]

Hi there,

I have just discovered the power of scripting with AutoIT, and have a working knowledge of programming languages. I'm trying to automate a bunch of software installations one after the other. The only way I know to do this is to use the WinWaitActive in conjunction with the Send (or ControlSend) functions to step through each installation process, choosing the settings that matter. With Office 2010, there are no special options, just "Install Now". However, after installation completes, the window that says it is finished actually reports as having no visible text using the AutoIT window info, even though there is highlightable text showing in the window. To me, this means I can't determine when installation is finished, or do anything to close the window because I can't address it. The Title is the same Title that shows when the setup is first started. AutoIT Window Info does show that there is Hidden Text, but specifying it in the WinWaitActive function doesn't seem to work. Has anyone come across this behavior? I'd be happy to use the silent install, but I'm not sure how to confirm that installation is complete so that I can have the script move on to the next installation.

Thanks, and if anyone needs further info, just let me know.

[Chimaera]

Have you looked to see if the programs have silent switches and most do of one kind or another

Also rather than the method you talked about maybe this will give you some ideas

I use a heavily modified version of this code to install many different things at work all silent

Some Info on office

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd630736(v=office.14).aspx

Edited July 30, 2013 by Chimaera

[JLogan3o13]

Hi, OneJeremias, welcoeme to the forum. For Office 2010 specifically, I personally use the Office Customization Tool wihch outputs to a config file once you're done. You then just call setup.exe /config, and it will install based on your settings. You can then wait until the process of setup.exe no longer exists. Something like this:

ShellExecuteWait("\\server\share\Office2010\Setup.exe", "config.xml")

WHile ProcessExists("setup.exe")
   Sleep(1000)
WEnd

[OneJeremias]

Thank you both, that gives me lots to go on! The ProcessExists function is exactly what I was looking for to get around the problem I was facing, but the overall solution of a graphical interface is actually my end goal, so I'll take a look through that code and see if I can modify it as necessary. Your promptness is very appreciated!

[OneJeremias]

Just as a followup, JLogan3o13's suggestion worked perfectly, although I did run into some confusion with figuring out the process name. The target system was a 64-bit machine, and I was installing 32-bit Office. The process name in task manager showed as "setup.exe *32", so I originally included the *32 in the AutoIT code. However, I actually needed to use just "setup.exe", which worked fine.

I'll be looking into Chimaera's approach later once we've made some immediate time gains with this simpler method.

[JLogan3o13]

Glad you were able to get it resolved.

Don't forget to mark the thread as solved, so people searching for a similar issue know

[Bert]

Look in my signature for the vollatran project. It may help you.

Edited August 2, 2013 by YogiBear

[OneJeremias]

Ok, so it turned out that building my own GUI was not that difficult, so I now have a working, compiled script that accepts checkboxes for the software to install and runs through the installations as it should. Thanks again! 

Somehow I missed the reminder by JLogan to mark this as solved so I am doing that now.