Unattended installation

Silent install commands for 89 Windows programs

Every guide on unattended installation documents one program at a time, by trying flags until something works. The switch is usually not a secret: for 58 of the programs below the publisher states it in the installer manifest, and we publish it straight from there.

The command, program by program

Run each from the folder containing the downloaded installer. Rows marked MSI take the standard Windows Installer switches because they are MSI packages, which is a property of the format and not a publisher statement.

msiexec switches, the ones that actually matter

Any .msi accepts these regardless of who made it, because they belong to Windows Installer rather than to the program.

/i

Install the package. The counterpart is /x, which removes it.

/qn

Completely silent, no interface at all. /qb shows only a progress bar, which is useful while you are still testing the command.

/norestart

Never reboot on its own. Without this an installer may restart the machine while someone is working on it.

/l*v log.txt

Write a verbose log. This is the single most useful flag when a silent install fails, because there is no window to tell you why.

ALLUSERS=1

Install for every user rather than only the one running the command. Requires an elevated terminal.

A .exe is different: the switch depends on which installer builder made it. /S is Nullsoft, /VERYSILENT is Inno Setup, /quiet is Burn and WiX, and plenty of vendors invent their own. That is exactly why the table above is worth having: it is per program, not per guess.

Knowing whether it worked

Silent means nothing appears on screen, including failures. Read the exit code instead of watching the screen.

$p = Start-Process .\installer.exe -ArgumentList '/S' -Wait -PassThru
$p.ExitCode

0

Success.

3010

Success, but a reboot is required to finish. Not a failure.

1603

The catch-all failure. Almost always permissions, an existing installation, or a missing dependency.

1618

Another installation is already running. Wait and retry rather than forcing it.

1619

The installer package could not be opened. Usually a wrong path, or a partial download.

Getting a non-zero code? Look it up in our installer error codes.