Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Unattended Visual Source Safe 2005 installation

To install Visual Source Safe 2005 silently, you must first create an install ini file using Setup.exe.
The setup in the root of the CD will not do this, you have to navigate to the setup folder on the CD.
If you are using a download from MSDN, there is only one setup.exe and it’s the one to use.
The machine that you use to create this ini will be the template for all installations. You cannot create the ini file from a machine that already has VSS installed. You must create it from a machine that does not yet have VSS installed.

From a command line, execute the following:
\\(servername)\(sharename)\(VSS Path)\setup.exe /CreateUnattend \\(servername)\(sharename)\(Path to INI)\filename.ini

I create my ini file in the same folder as the setup process.
For example, my command would look like this:
\\VSSServer\VSS\setup.exe /CreateUnattend \\VSSServer\VSS\FullInstall.ini

Again, the machine that you are running this process on should not have VSS installed yet. If it does have VSS installed, the ini file will be used to upgrade or add/remove features and will not install VSS on the target machine.

To install on the target machine, run this command:

\\(servername)\(sharename)\(VSS Path)\setup.exe /UnattendFile \\(servername)\(sharename)\(Path to INI)\filename.ini