UG Guru

This is a bit of a longshot but there may be a way. I'm investigating creating msi installations for some software we have that doesn't already have an msi file. The aim is to have silent installs for all of the programs we have. I was wondering if instead of creating an msi file why can't I just create a program that waits for prompts to appear and auto fills them or hits ok or whatever. I guess the hardest parts would be to identify what action to do and when from the forms that appear during the setup process. If these had something unique that I can read and then react to I could possibly do this. The other stummbling block would be performing the action on the other program(the installation package). Could this be as simple as getting the location of the active form and knowing the form layout "simulating" a mouse click on the relevant part of the screen (eg a button)? Not sure if any of this is do-able. Some advice on this would be great. Cheers,

I'm not actually distributing photoshop. I'm Creating a utlilty that can install software over a network for systems admin purposes. Similar to GPO but with some improvements. Installs have to be quiet with it as users can't interact with the install process. For old progs with no silent install option or with no msi file I need to create an msi to do the work. Thanks for the info. I'll do a bit of researching. Cheers,

Is it possible to create an msi installer for a program that already exists? I'm trying to silently install programs like Adobe Photoshop 6 that didn't ship with an msi installation or the option to silently install. Thanks

I'm using a listbox to display status of a program that is running. After an event I add a line of information to the listbox. I'd like to make this a little bit easier to pick out specific information so I'd like to make some areas of text bold or possibly a different colour. I'd even like to go as far as making a section of text in one of the lines in the listbox a different colour/bold to the rest of that line. For example Host123 on network Failed or Installation of Myprog on Host123 Completed Succesfully I've seen a complicated solution that draws the listbox with some extra code but I was expecting there to be a simple way of formatting a strings colour, font etc a bit like html tags. Any help would be great. Cheers, UG Guru

The WSH Runtime library is inbuilt into windows just like subst however subst has issues on win 2000 server with no fix. After a bit of research I've found net use would be a better alternative. However I prefer to use something that does this in code as I can control timing of events in code better than having to check to see if the shell has finished. Also if an error happens in the shell It's harder to get that error back into the app to trap and accomodate it isn't it? All I'd be able to tell is that the shell failed? I may be missing some tricks or not understanding the implications of using WSH in my code though. After all I'm no expert.

Not sure if I can, or if I want to. I'd prefer not to make a call to a command line argument. I've managed to work out how to get the wsh runtime library referenced in my project and used the same/similar scripting code to get the desired effect. The reference I need in my project was a com reference to the windos script host object model. This added iwshruntimelibrary as a reference in my project Imports IWshRuntimeLibrary sub main() Dim neto As New WshNetwork 'map a host admin share drive to u: using a username and password neto.MapNetworkDrive("u:", "\\myhost\C$", , "myhost\user", "password") 'remove mapping neto.RemoveNetworkDrive("u:") end sub This seems to do the trick.

I'm currently trying to convert an old vbs file into .net The file is a remote installation script for some software. It uses wmi to install the program remotely however wmi can't install from a mapped drive and we don't want to have to insert the CD on all of the remote machines (there are quite a few). To get around this the script maps the remote c$ copies the installation files, installs the program and then removes the installation files. It then moves onto the next remote host in the list. How would I go about creating the mapping to the remote c$ to the U: drive of the local machine used to install the program in .net?? The mapping will need to pass a user name and password. Cheers

I would do that but I'm creating all my code in a text editor as I don't have visual studio.

I'm trying to compile a vb file to a dll using the windows vbc.exe file I can almost get it to compile however a few commands come up with Name 'Function' is not declared. The functions are as follows: Mid Len InstrRev MsgBox vbcr Which assembly .dll file do I need to reference to get this to work. I already have the following references: System.Windows.Forms.dll system.dll I've tried referencing Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll as well but it tells me this is done as default. It looks to me like it hasn't as these look like old vb commands. Any help would be greatfully received.