Background

This article describes the creation of a deployment image for the purpose of silent installation of V8i versions of the software on client machines. It describes the process of creating a silent install deployment image for Promis.e, but can be adapted for Bentley Substation.

Note: for Bentley Substation CONNECT Edition, see the Create a Bentley Substation Deployment Image section of online Help for Bentley Substation available from Bentley Product Documentation.

The term "Silent installation" is used to mean no user interface, installation wizards, or prompts are presented to the user.  "Deployment image" can be considered as a pre-configured offline installer. Following are the advantages of using a deployment image:

• Internet connection is not required on the destination workstations.
• Downloading and installing pre-requisite packs and other required software on the workstations is not required.
• The installation and other paths can be set in the deployment image. This results in the product installed to and configured to use the same paths on all workstations.
• The features and companion applications to be installed are selected when creating deployment image. This results in all workstations having exactly the same installed components.

Steps to Accomplish

Note: for Bentley Substation CONNECT Edition, see the Create a Bentley Substation Deployment Image section of online Help for Bentley Substation available from Bentley Product Documentation.

Download the installation package

See the following articles.
How to download the Promis.e software
How to download the Bentley Substation software

Create a shortcut for creating a deployment image

1. Run the downloaded installation file. For example, pes08111396en.exe.
2. Choose the Extract installation package only option and note or specify the destination folder, typically a subfolder of C:\BentleyDownloads\ such as C:\BentleyDownloads\Promise_08.11.13.96.  Click OK.
   
3. Using Windows Explorer, right-click setup.MSi.exe in the folder noted in step 2 and select Create Shortcut.
4. Right-click the resulting setupMSi.exe – Shortcut item and select Properties.
5. On the General tab, change setupMSi.exe – Shortcut  to CreateDeployment
   
6. On the Shortcut tab, append /s to the end of the Target field. The Target field should end up looking something like:
   C:\BentleyDownloads\Promise_08.11.13.96\setupMSi.exe /s
   
7. Click OK.

Create the deployment image

1. Double-click the CreateDeployment shortcut created in the steps above and click Yes on the User Account Control prompt.
2. On the first dialog that appears, click Advanced Settings.
   
3. Select the Silent mode installation option. 
   
4. Click Browse, then create and select a C:\PromiseDeployment folder as the path where the deployment image will be created. Set any Proxy Settings necessary at your site. Click OK.
5. Consider disabling the installation of Visualization Content, this is not Substation-specific material.
6. Click the Create button. Proceed through the rest of the process, choosing the options that you want the deployment image to install. This includes the paths of the application and data folders, the electrical standard, and which shortcuts to install (desktop, start menu, etc.). Pre-requisite components will be downloaded and added to the deployment image.
7. Click Finish when the process is complete.

Edit the Setup.xml file

To force the install to create a local Data folder, edit the Setup.xml file and set the EXISTFOLDER parameter to 0. If the users will always use a network Data folder and do not need a local Data folder, this step is not necessary.

1. Open the Setup.xml file located in the C:\PromiseDeployment folder using an XML editor. The remainder of this example uses XML Notepad.
   
   (Steps 2 through 5 shown in the video)
2. Select AdminOptions > Properties in the Tree View.
3. Select the highlighted line in the right-hand pane. At the end of the line add ;EXISTFOLDER
4. Select AdminOptions > CommandLine_x64 in the Tree View.
5. Select the highlighted line in the right-hand pane. Add EXISTFOLDER=”0”
6. Repeat step 5 for the CommandLine_x86 item if the package will be installed on 32-bit machines.
7. Select AdminOptions > UIMode in the Tree View. Based on the choice made on Advanced Settings when creating the deployment image, UIMode should have a value of silent in the right-hand pane. 
8. Save the Setup.xml file.

Run the installation of the deployment image

The deployment image would typically be pushed to a destination machine and the setupMsi.exe file executed.

See Also

Distributing the Setup configuration

Network Installation Guide

External Links

XML Notepad