Silent installations are installations that run without a user interface. 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 end user for input. Instead, a silent installation must get its user input from a response file (.iss file).
A response file contains information that an end user would ordinarily enter as responses to dialog boxes when running a normal installation. During a silent installation (when the user runs Setup.exe with the /s switch), Setup.exe reads the necessary input from the response file at run time.
The format of response files resembles that of an .ini file, but response files have the .iss extension. A response file is a plain text file consisting of sections containing data entries.
Creating a response file
To create a response file, run Setup.exe with the /r switch, which runs the installation normally, and additionally creates the response file used by a silent installation. By default, the response file is called Setup.iss, and is created in the Windows or WinNT folder. To specify a different name or location for the response file, use the /f1"ISS file path" switch to Setup.exe.
Running a silent installation
To run an installation silently based on the contents of a response file, the end user runs Setup.exe with the /s switch in combination with the /f1"ISS file path" switch to specify the location of the response file.
A silent installation program does not display a dialog if an error occurs. Instead, status information for the silent installation is recorded (by default) in a file called Setup.log, created in the same folder as the response file being used. The end user can specify a different name and location for the log file using the /f2"LOG file path" switch to Setup.exe.
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