Classic Shell: Forum

Hi. I am trying to distribute classic shell using WSUS package publisher. I have extracted the MSI per instructions, and created a simple install with that. The problem I am running into is I get an error 0x80070667 which maps to invalid command line for the MSI. I want it to use /qn ADDLOCAL=ClassicStartMenu, but cannot seem to make any of it work. I used just /qn and it still had an error. So I tried running the install in a cmd window using msiexec, get the same problem when using the switches. Anyone have any advice?

So you are saying that just running "msiexec misfile /qn" from the command line gives you an error?
Are you using elevated prompt? Without /qn I think you have to run as admin because the installer can't ask for credentials.
Also, what version of Windows are you using?

I'm trying to distribute it to a handful of Win 7 Pro systems. I may not have elevated the cmd prompt, I will have to check again.
I will post back in a bit after checking.

OK, so it still didn't work. I ran msiexec ClassicShellSetup64_4_2_1.msi /qn in an elevated command prompt and it immediately popped up the msiexec help window as if I had used a bad command line parameter.

What happens if you don't use the /qn parameter?
Does /qn work with other MSI files?

OK, I also get that (msi help window popup) just running the installer with no switches. I am running this on a Win 7 Pro system that is fully updated, I wonder if one of the updates has affected this.

Well, I was able to get it to work in a cmd windows by running msiexec /i ClassicShellSetup64_4_2_1.msi. It then ran and the installer showed normally. I don't know if I can use the /i {product} in the distribution software, I am going to try and see what it does.

Ah, right. The installer exe also uses the /i switch.

Well using /i does not work with the package publisher. I use the WSUS package publisher software to distribute alot of 3rd party software via WSUS successfully, so is it possible that there is just something about the extracted msi that is not quite right? I am going to try to figure out another way to distribute this.

So I finally figured out a way to get this to work the way I need it to. What I did was create a batch file with "msiexec.exe /i classicshellsetup64_4_2_1.msi /qn ADDLOCAL=ClassicStartMenu" as the command. I then compiled the batch file into an exe and created the package out of that while adding the msi as a file for the package. It's a bit of a PITA because I want to use product ID for detection of installed and installable, but it works fine this way.

If you can provide command line parameters, then you can simply call the installer exe with the "/qn ADDLOCAL=ClassicStartMenu". The installer internally calls msiexec with the /i parameter.