SourceTree silent install on Windows
Asked by Nicolas Bonvin:

Hi,

I'm trying to install SourceTree 1.3.3 via Puppet on Windows (300+ machines) and I'm struggling with the (undocumented) silent install options. Has anyone been able to do it ? Or in other words: what options should be used to make an unattended install of SourceTree 1.3.3 on Windows ?

Thanks,

Nicolas


Answers:
author: Nicolas Bonvin
body: OK, I think I've figured it out: the two options to pass are /qn (to make it silent) and APPDIR=some-folder (if you don't want to use the default folder). Easy to puppetize once you know what's expected from the installer.

The next requirement to make this install fully automated is to preconfigure the user prefs (git location, username/email, putty SSH and licence) - they are currently asked upon first launch. We are doing this kind of automation for all of our development software provisioning (100+ products) so I guess I'll have to open a New Feature issue for that.

Thanks for your time, the Advanced Installer mention helped me dig further.

Cheers,

Nicolas

comments: author: Marcel Noordzij
body: Did you in the end succeed in getting it to work in a full 'silent' mode.

With silent I mean:

The user questions to be answered (registration, mercury question) are handled by the installation itself and not asked to the user after first starting Sourcetree?

Regards,

Marcel


author: Nicolas Bonvin
body: Hi Marcel,

No, we could not make it completely silent since the config you mention (except for the license file) is stored in a directory whose name changes with the SourceTree version. On Windows it comes in the form of *APPDATA/.../SourceTree.exe_Url_nmsdfhjsdf1234h1234nmkscv2344j/.../user.config*.

This file is also where the SourceTree user prefs are stored when the app is used so we don't want to play with it during provisioning.

So yes, we are still looking for a way to specify the installation prefs upon install, as of today we provision the license file and let the user answer the Mercury/Git questions.

Hope this helps,

Cheers,

Nicolas


author: KieranA
body: Yeah we no longer user ClickOnce due to various limitations, just to clarify.


author: Jeff Thomas
body: Ahh good catch! I had assumed they were still on ClickOnce.

[Here is the cache](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:WRlcwhR9IecJ:blog.sourcetreeapp.com/2013/05/13/new-installer-updater-for-sourcetree-for-windows/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) for the blog post. It looks like they've switch to an MSI built with Advanced Installer.

I just used the /qb parameter to run the exe from the command line and it appeared to work. I'm not very experienced with silent installs and puppet, but I found some information [here](http://www.advancedinstaller.com/user-guide/qa-silent-install.html).


author: Nicolas Bonvin
body: Thanks Jeff,

\>Have you seen [this previous answer](/questions/161197/automated-silent-distributed-install-of-sourcetree) from Steve?

Yes, but I think the installer was changed since then, here's the post: [](http://blog.sourcetreeapp.com/2013/05/13/new-installer-updater-for-sourcetree-for-windows/)<http://blog.sourcetreeapp.com/2013/05/13/new-installer-updater-for-sourcetree-for-windows/>

503 right now, unfortunately, but from Google search it goes:
> 13 mai 2013 - We've just changed our installer and auto-update system for **SourceTree** for Windows -- up until now we've been using **ClickOnce** , which **...**

So I think that ClickOnce is not used anymore, but I can't figure out what it has been replaced with either.


author: Jeff Thomas
body: Nicolas,

Have you seen [this previous answer](/questions/161197/automated-silent-distributed-install-of-sourcetree) from Steve?
> Unfortunately we're limited by what ClickOnce can offer right now, and it doesn't have a good way of automating installs.