Silent Installation in Java Plug-in

Introduction

Java 2 Platform Runtime Environment 1.3 installations are built using the InstallShield 5.1 and InstallShield PackageForTheWeb products. These products contain built-in support for silent or unattended installations. This document gives a brief introduction to the steps for running silent installations. Please refer to the documentation provided at the InstallShield Web Site  for complete information about silent installations.

How Silent Installations Work

A normal (non-silent) installation receives the necessary input from the user in the form of responses to dialog boxes. However, a silent installation does not prompt the user for input and must get its user input from a different source. That source is the InstallShield Silent Response File (.iss file). A response file contains information similar to that which an end user would enter as responses to dialog boxes when running a normal setup. InstallShield reads the necessary input from the response file at run time while performing a silent installation.

The format of a response file resembles that of an .ini file, but response files have .iss extensions. A response file is a plain text file consisting of sections containing data entries. 

The InstallShield installations can be invoked with the -s parameter to run silently.  The Java 2 Platform SDK and Runtime Environment installations can be run in interactive or silent mode.

Here is an example of how to create the response file:

1. Download the j2re1_3_0-win.exe installation bundle.

2. Run the JRE installation bundle with the additional flags "-a -r -f1filename.iss", where filename.iss is the name you want to use for your setup.iss file. For example:

   j2re1_3_0-win.exe -a -r -f1C:\setup.iss

   Note that there is no space between the -f1 and the filename.

3. Go through the install dialogs as normal, selecting the options that you want to be used in subsequent silent installs.

InstallShield will record all of your installation choices in your setup.iss file. This response file can be used later for the silent installation.

Here is an example of a response file:

[InstallShield Silent]
Version=v5.00.000
File=Response File
[DlgOrder]
Dlg0=SdLicense-0
Count=2
Dlg1=SdAskDestPath-0
[SdLicense-0]
Result=1
[SdAskDestPath-0]
szDir=C:\Program Files\Java Plug-in 1.3
Result=1
[Application]
Name=Java Plug-in
Version=1.3
Company=JavaSoft

After you have created the response file, you are ready to run the installation in silent mode using InstallShield Silent. When running an installation in silent mode, be aware that no messages are displayed. Instead, you can ask for a log file to be created to record installation information, including if the installation was successful. You can review the log file to determine the result of the installation.

To launch InstallShield Silent, run your j2re1_3_0-win.exe install bundle with the flags "-s -a -s -f1filename.iss" where filename.iss is the name of your setup.iss file.

If you are doing this from an MS-DOS shell, you may find it convenient to use the "start /w" command, as that will cause MS-DOS to wait until the install is complete. For example:

start /w j2re1_3_0-win.exe -s -a -s -f1C:\setup.iss

If you want to obtain a log file describing the install, use the additional flag "-f2filename.log". This will cause the log to be written to the filename.log file. For example:

start /w j2re1_3_0-win.exe -s -a -s -f1C:\setup.iss -f2C:\setup.log

To verify if a silent installation succeeded, look at the ResultCode value in the [ResponseResult] section of setup.log. InstallShield writes an appropriate return value after the ResultCode keyname.

Note that there should be no space between the -f1 or -f2 flag and the following filename.

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