silent/unattened installation of multisim

[rofo Hi5]

Hi!

I´am trying to deploy multisim 10 from deployment tool.

Installation is on Windows 7 x86, setup.exe is installing with Local System account, not with a domain account.

I get error 1641 in the end of installation, error message is " Unable to determine location of start menu" that message I get twice.

I believe it is

MetaInstaller: Action the HI-TECH C51-lite installer was successfully launched.
MetaInstaller: Action the HI-TECH PICC lite installer was successfully launched.


That's is generating the error message.

part of the log file:


MetaInstaller: Attempting to update volume location cache for NI Service LocatorVolumeCache: Did not find keys in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\A028AAFB8D7CEA243AABEC11F8F38020\SourceList\MediaVolumeCache: Did not find keys in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Installer\Products\A028AAFB8D7CEA243AABEC11F8F38020\SourceList\MediaPart returned 0
MetaInstaller: --- Finished Running Part NI Service Locator ---
MetaInstaller: Tue May 17 15:22:04 2011
MetaInstaller: --- Starting NIPie post-part: Tue May 17 15:22:04 2011 ---
MetaInstaller: Command: "C:\Windows\TEMP\nii3BCF.tmp" /qnm
MetaInstaller: --- Finished NIPie post-part: Tue May 17 15:22:04 2011 ---
MetaInstaller: --- Starting launching end executes: Tue May 17 15:22:05 2011 ---
MetaInstaller: Action the HI-TECH C51-lite installer was successfully launched.
MetaInstaller: Action the HI-TECH PICC lite installer was successfully launched.
MetaInstaller: Action License Manager Update for Windows Vista was successfully launched.
MetaInstaller: --- Finished launching end executes: Tue May 17 16:16:51 2011 ---
MetaInstaller: MetaInstaller exiting Tue May 17 16:16:52 2011. Returning 1641

[_user32]

rofo Hi5,

I believe Multisim v10.0 predates Win 7 and therefore does not support Win 7, this OS was first supported in Multisim v11.0.  

See here:

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/5590

For a list of supported OS / platform requirements in the latest Multisim version, check out the release notes, or for the current version go here:

http://www.ni.com/multisim/requirements.htm

Regards,

Pat Noonan

National Instruments

[mikejs]

I'm seeing the same problem with Multisim 11.0.1, also on Win7 x86 As a normal domain user, the installation works fine, either silently or interactively. But when run as a local system account, the installation fails with two "unable to determine location of start menu" messages. These seem to be related to the following lines from the log: MetaInstaller: CustomExecute: Action the HI-TECH C51-lite installer was successfully launched. CmdLineFormatted: ""C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Circuit Design Suite 11.0\hitech\HC51-lite-9.60.exe" "--I agree to the terms of the licence" "--dir=C:\Program Files\HI-TECH Software\HC51\lite\9.60"". MetaInstaller: CustomExecute: Action the HI-TECH PICC lite installer was successfully launched. CmdLineFormatted: ""C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Circuit Design Suite 11.0\hitech\PICC-lite-9.60.exe" "--I agree to the terms of the licence" "--dir=C:\Program Files\HI-TECH Software\PICC\lite\9.60"". This seems to be after the installation has declared itself successful, so even though these fail, the results file lists the whole circuit design suite as having succeeded. If you re-run the setup, it doesn't retry. At a guess, the failure happens because the local system account doesn't have the full set of Shell Folder registry keys or possibly start menu folders. I'm trying some tests to work out exactly what it is expecting to find. Unfortunately, in our environment, the user at the machine will not be an administrator, so we use SCCM to launch scripts as the local system account to run the setup programs silently, so we could do with a way around this.

[mikejs]

Sorry, formatting seems to be a bit messed up with that, trying again:

I'm seeing the same problem with Multisim 11.0.1, also on Win7 x86.

As a normal domain user, the installation works fine, either silently or interactively. But when run as a local system account, the installation fails with two "unable to determine location of start menu" messages. These seem to be related to the following lines from the log:

MetaInstaller: CustomExecute: Action the HI-TECH C51-lite installer was successfully launched. CmdLineFormatted: ""C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Circuit Design Suite 11.0\hitech\HC51-lite-9.60.exe" "--I agree to the terms of the licence" "--dir=C:\Program Files\HI-TECH Software\HC51\lite\9.60"".

MetaInstaller: CustomExecute: Action the HI-TECH PICC lite installer was successfully launched. CmdLineFormatted: ""C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Circuit Design Suite 11.0\hitech\PICC-lite-9.60.exe" "--I agree to the terms of the licence" "--dir=C:\Program Files\HI-TECH Software\PICC\lite\9.60"".

This seems to be after the installation has declared itself successful, so even though these fail, the results file lists the whole circuit design suite as having succeeded. If you re-run the setup, it doesn't retry.

At a guess, the failure happens because the local system account doesn't have the full set of Shell Folder registry keys or possibly start menu folders. I'm trying some tests to work out exactly what it is expecting to find. Unfortunately, in our environment, the user at the machine will not be an administrator, so we use SCCM to launch scripts as the local system account to run the setup programs silently, so we could do with a way around this.

[mikejs]

For anyone else who runs into this problem, here's a workaround that works for us. Before launching the setup, ensure that the following registry key exists:

HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

"Start Menu"="C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu"

And ensure that the following folders exist:

C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu

C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs

None of these exist by default for the local system account. The above paths assume a standard Win7 install.

With these changes in place, the setup runs through silently when run as the local system account (e.g. when launched via SCCM).

[Carmen1946]

Hi mikejs,

I work on the Circuit Design Suite installer and I am trying to reproduce the problem, but I don't see any errors when I install on a Win 7 machine as local system user. The only issue I notice is that the HI-TECH shortcuts are not created when installing as a local system user, which seems related to the errors and workaround you mentioned. 

Is there any way you can provide more detail, such as when in the installation the errors occur and perhaps a screenshot of the error. Also how the Circuit Design Suite installer is being called by SCCM.

Thanks for your help!

[rofo Hi5]

Hi!

My solution was to execute with a Domain User account (that is Administrator on the computer), did that with PSEXEC.

I work with a droduct called upKeeper (www.upKeeper.se), it´s similar to SCCM. At least we get same error 🙂

I can create a labenvirement for you, so you can test the application and get the error.

[Carmen1946]

Hi,

Good to hear that you've found a solution. After some investigation I have found that there are Windows permissions issues when installing the HI-TECH and PICC compilers as a local user. Since the HI-TECH and PICC installers are 3rd party installers that we bundle and run as part of the Circuit Design Suite installer, there is not much we can do to change the installation behaviour.

The best workaround would be as mentioned to run the Circuit Design Suite install as an administrator or at minimum give administrator privileges for the installation.

[Theman792g]

With the latest version of multisim.  Is there a way to deploy the product.  I have several labs that need the product and i am trying to use one of my deployment programs to complete this.  I need either a MSI file or the parameters for the silent install using the EXE.  Any help will really help.  I am tyring to avoid completing the installation one by one.