0

I have a .msi file in my remote machine which is in a different domain from my local machine. I am able to connect to the remote machine with powershell but how can I install the msi there. The installation process has a lot of inputs to be given along with pressing 'Next' and then again giving a particular input and radio buttons and many more. Thus it is an interactive installation. In my local I am able to do it with [System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys] to imitate the keyboard inputs but as the process will be running in background in the remote machine I don't think SendKeys will work. And 'psexec' is not an option here because in my remote machine I cannot include PSTools with my Powershell. Is there any way to do it with Invoke-Command and -ArgumentList??

If there is a way then how can I choose sequentially whether to input a text in a particular field or click the next button or click any other button within the application window??

Nephilim700
  • 73
  • 1
  • 10
  • 1
    Have a look at the answers in this question [Silent installation of a MSI package](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8560166/silent-installation-of-a-msi-package). You'll need to find the public properties the msi exports. – Theo Dec 26 '18 at 13:27
  • Thank You for the link. I went through it and have used Orca to find all the Properties associated with the msi. But some input fields which are in the msi are not mentioned there. Is there any other table where I have to look to set them up as command line arguments during the msiexec command? @Theo – Nephilim700 Dec 26 '18 at 14:49
  • Maybe you could try [lessmsi](http://lessmsi.activescott.com/) ? – Theo Dec 26 '18 at 15:03
  • lessmsi is giving me the same data as of Orca. There are a few input fields which are empty by default and I have to put data into them during installation. But the property name for those fields are not listed in the Property table of both Orca and lessmsi. Am I missing something here? @Theo – Nephilim700 Dec 26 '18 at 18:11
  • Then maybe the answer from @JohnHeese can help you.[Determine if MSI/EXE supports certain flag/argument](https://stackoverflow.com/a/9729373/9898643) – Theo Dec 27 '18 at 19:49
  • Yes....this one helped. Thank you very much for the responses :) @Theo – Nephilim700 Dec 28 '18 at 18:25

1 Answers1

0

I finally got to solve this puzzle with the help of a automation tool called AutoIt. This tool has its own scripting language and can create .exe files to run a particular application and do the corresponding installation steps based on each successive window the application installer pops. After creating the .exe I copied it to my remote machine using Copy-Item or you can use robocopy, then invoked the .exe remotely with the help of psexec. As I had the misconception previously about psexec, it only needs to be integrated with powershell at the local and thus it automatically creates a session of its own and interacts with the remote machine. This is the command to run the .exe on remote machine:-

psexec -i 2 -s -d \\remote_machine_name -u Username -p Password C:\Path_to_exe\installer.exe

You can actually log on to the remote machine and see in the GUI that it is happening. And yes, obviously you need to have the .msi which will be called to be present there in the remote machine so that the .exe can do its job locally in the remote session.

Nephilim700
  • 73
  • 1
  • 10