Hello,

I left windows 2 years ago, and now I am back in the windows world at work. This makes me appreciate Linux even more.

When I do a new installation on a Linux machine, I write a bash script to install a bunch of programs at once. This is only possible because of the -y flag for apt-get, which answers every installation prompt with a default yes. I have to install a bunch of programs from one cd on a bunch of windows machines at my school, and I was wondering if anyone knows a comparable command in the windows command line.

I know this is a Linux forum, but I'm hoping a Linux person might help me cope a little in the windows world.

Thanks.

Eric

unfortunately i believe that answer is no, there is a fundamental difference between windows and linux as to how software is installed, apt-get downloads packages from a repository and unpacks and installs the contents of the packages and creates the default configurations, windows on the other hand uses stand alone executables as the method of installation and none of them are likely to have any command line options which means you are stuck with a point and click interface that can't be easily scripted if at all
so in short my guess, being someone who has to use windows a lot is no
however there is cygwin for windows which might have a package manager, but thats a different story alltogether

Perhaps you can use
http://wpkg.org/

Kind regards

wpkg can automate installation of certain programs on windows but I do not think it can emulate all the functions provided by apt. wpkg would not download the packages from internet. You will need to have them on the server and then push them onto the clients where they are to be installed.

Thank you, I will take a closer look at wpkg.

For clarity, I am helping my school district get a bunch of new machines deployed while IT people take the time to set up an imaging system. I have been running a program where we get old computers donated to the school, and I teach students to install Linux on the machines. So students themselves are installing Linux on old machines and making them useful to the school, all in a very efficient manner. But the official district computers are windows-based. If I can use the linux machines to streamline the setup of the windows machines, it will go a long way to improving people's perception of open source solutions in public education.

Is it possible to use my main linux machine to push windows applications to a bunch of windows machines? Right now I have all the windows exe installers in a directory on my linux box. Currently I write all those installers to a cd, also copying to the cd a simple batch script to successively launch each installer, but kids have to sit and click through all the install prompts. It would be pretty sweet to use something like wpkg on the linux box itself to install these applications on the windows machines over a local network. I think I have all the resources to do that; can someone tell me briefly if that is feasible?

wow, someone who wants a linux-like app installer for windows... usually it's the other way around

Installing software on Linux is easier than windows. To answer to OP question though, there is no uniform way, some of those apps might have command line ways to install them, Adobe reader does for instance, but you would need to write a script that used each one of these individual install commands and if the installer didn't accept command line install then well it just won't install. You could use Samba to act as a share to house all the installers and then just access the share to install all the software.

the closest thing in the windows world i can think of is windows update but that only applies to the windows os itself, unlike linux which updates any software in the repository that has a newer version then the installed version

@OP,
Great feeling hearing your good work around open source and linux. For the particular use that you say, wpkg can come handy tool though it may not be as efficient as apt or other package managers we have. But you can definitely automate the installation process for sure. But before going on further, take a look at wiki and see what all applications are supported for automated installations.

Thank you everyone for your specific help, and overall sympathy for having to work on windows machines. In the next few weeks, students will get the experience of doing volume installs on both windows and linux systems, which will be a pretty awesome experience for high school and middle school students.

A couple questions to wrap this up:
I have the process streamlined to one Windows installation dvd, one software installation dvd that uses a batch script to sequentially launch every installer, and then a few network configuration steps that I haven't had a chance to try automating yet. But this process still requires students to individually press okay and accept and enter license codes, etc. Someone suggested configuring one machine completely, and then making a system image. I know this can be done in linux using something like remastersys. If I go down that road in Windows, will I be successful? I understand how that would work for reimaging a single windows machine, but will the image disk work on every machine? I fear there's going to be a message box that says, "You are pirating software onto a new machine! Pay us with your life!" I don't want to start down that road if that's where it leads.

And so I don't have to keep asking really MS-specific questions, can anyone refer me to a high-quality, high-traffic windows it forum?

Thank you again, and wherever this goes I will post some student impressions on the linux/ windows experience from their perspective. One thing I'm looking forward to is being able to freely distribute copies of our linux setup dvd's, after having to closely guard all the windows-based install discs we've been using!

You could use sysprep an ghost
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/302577
http://service1.symantec.com/support...00081610075225

Well, reading repo's links had me immersed in Microsoft's labyrinthine licensing schemes, which makes me throw my hands up after a while. I now understand why our IT people are taking so long to set up an imaging system; it's not the technology that's difficult, it's the licensing gymnastics that you have to go through to set up a legal large-scale system. It makes me sick that so much of our people's time is taken up sorting out licensing issues. This motivates me to turn my school into a demonstration site, where we set up a high-quality linux system with a straightforward imaging process. One of the best parts will be making those imaging disks freely available to students and visitors.

Thank you everyone, I think I know how to move forward on this project.

Well by using sysprep you can cause it to request license key for Windows and any MS software, the real hard part is any additional software you might be able to install it to prompt for a serial key I don't know. The easiest way to handle these things is to have volume licensing for all software though this might be unrealistic. THere are also lots of other imaging options, like using dd and gzip, or using FOG. or PING (PING is not ghost). As far as working images, all you need to ensure is that any drivers you need for a machine are present in your image.

Moved: This thread is more suitable in General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.