Installation Location

The directory where the bulk of the software will be installed to is controlled through an MSI property called INSTALLDIR. By default, this is either %PROGRAMFILES%\Vizrt\Viz Pilot x.y if no earlier version of Viz Pilot has been installed, or alternatively the installation folder of the earlier Viz Pilot version. Some files will be installed outside of this folder, either in the Windows system folder or the %PROGRAMFILES%\Vizrt\Common folder. These files cannot be moved by changing the INSTALLDIR property.

To override the INSTALLDIR property using msiexec you append INSTALLDIR="C:\the\correct\folder" to the msiexec command line. For example:

If an earlier Viz Pilot version is already installed, this will move the installation to the new folder in the same way as selecting a new folder when running the installer interactively would do.

Feature Selection

It is not required to install all the features of the Viz Pilot system’s installer when running unattended. Selecting which features to be installed is based on listing up the names of the features. Since these are not easily extracted from the MSI, we supply a list of them below. Similar to how you set the install location, you supply a comma-separated list of the required features in a MSI property named ADDLOCAL on the command line:

This will install Viz Pilot’s Director component and the drivers for GPI integration, but nothing else.

Viz Pilot Components in Unattended Installations

Configuration Bundles

It is also possible to specify a configuration bundle during an unattended install. Again, this is done through MSI properties, this time a property named CONFIGBUNDLE.

This will install Viz Pilot in the default location, with the default set of features, and the configuration from the config.zip bundle located on the current user’s desktop.

Note that when specifying remote paths in the CONFIGBUNDLE property, network drive mappings on Windows are on a per user basis, and a drive named Z: might not (depending on your specific setup) exist for the user running the installation. To avoid issues, specify remote resources with a UNC path (for example \dist-server\vcp\config.zip) and make sure the network share is readable by the machine account.

Icons on the Windows Desktop

To place icons on the current user’s desktop during installation, use the MSI property INSTALLDESKTOPSHORTCUTS. For example:

Putting it all Together

All these options can of course be specified together to customize the installation to your specifications. For example:

Background

In a Windows domain, settings for different client computers are distributed in Group Policy Objects. These are self-contained units of configuration. One of the things they can specify is the installation of packages in MSI format, which is what we will use.

One limitation here is that you cannot define arbitrary MSI properties like you could on the command line examples using msiexec.exe, so we need to use an alternative configuration method. MSI provides a mechanism called a transform. A transform is a collection of changes applied to an installation. By applying a transform to a base installation package, the installer can add or replace data in the installation database. The installer can only apply transforms during an installation. The tools used to create GPOs allow the specification of a transform to apply to a package, so this gives us an opportunity to apply our customizations.

Creating a Transform

We will show one way of creating a transform using a freely available tool, Orca.

1. First, start Orca.

2. In the File menu, click Open.

3. Navigate to the Viz Pilot installer, and open it.

4. Select Transform > New Transform.
   The title of the Orca window should now say (transformed by Untitled).

5. Locate the Property table in the listing on the left-hand side, and select it.

6. Right-click the property list and select Add Row.

7. Enter a property name of INSTALLDIR.

8. In the next window, enter the value of E:\Vizrt\Viz Pilot x.y.
   This sets the installation location.

9. Right-click again and add a row with the name ADDLOCAL and value VizPilotNews,ObjectStore.
   This is a comma-separated list of feature IDs that will be installed. In this example we install Viz Pilot News and the Object Store client, but nothing else (including the bundled Oracle Instant Client libraries.)

10. Repeat this procedure (if required) for the CONFIGBUNDLE property.

11. When you are satisfied with the new values in the property table, select Transform > Generate Transform.
    Save the transform file to the preferred location.

Creating a GPO with an Applied Transform for Distributing Viz Pilot

We will now show how to use the transform, a configuration bundle and Viz Pilot MSI installer to create a GPO. We use Windows Server 2012 R2, so the exact steps might vary with different versions of the Windows Server.

First you need to prepare a network share that will host the MSI, transform and configuration bundle. This network share must be readable by the target client’s computer account, because when running the install unattended, no interactive user will be logged in and lending their access credentials to the installer process. One way of doing this is just to set the share as read-only to Everyone, but the details and best way of doing this will be different in various networks.

In this example, we will use the UNC path \server\software to represent this share. Put all three files on this share. The three paths are:

• \server\software\VizPilot-x.y.x.x.msi

• \server\software\transform.mst

• \server\software\config.zip
  You might end up having multiple transform.mst and config.zip pairs to support different sets of configuration in your setup.

First, we need to create a GPO representing our software installation.

1. Start the Group Policy Management tool.

2. Place the GPO in the Group Policy Objects container.
   We are using the domain structure, so this container is preferred here, but there might be a better location for it in your domain.

3. Right-click the Group Policy Objects container, and select New.

4. Give it a descriptive name, for example Viz Pilot installation.

   Note: Make sure the Source Starter GPO is set to (none).

5. Click OK.

6. Right-click the GPO we just created in the Group Policy Objects container, and click Edit.

7. In the Group Policy Management Editor window that opens, navigate to Computer Configuration > Policies > Software Settings.

8. Right-click it and select New > Package.

9. Using the file selector that appeared, navigate to the installer file.

   Note: It is important that you access it through the network share, even though it might also be visible through the local disk.

10. In our case we navigate to and select \server\software\VizPilot-x.y.x.x.msi.

11. In the box that appears, click Advanced.
    The properties windows for this package will now be shown.

12. Go to the Modifications tab and click Add.

13. Navigate to and select the transform file.

    Note: Again, make sure to use the network share.

14. Click OK.

15. Close the Group Policy Management Editor window.
    You now have a GPO that is configured to install Viz Pilot, but it needs to be assigned to a set of clients to take effect. In our case, all our relevant clients are in the Clients container on the top level of the domain, and we will link the GPO to this container.

16. In the Group Policy Management window, right-click the container in the list on the left hand side, and then click Link an Existing GPO.

17. Select the GPO you just created in the list, and click OK.
    The clients should now install the software on the next reboot.

Troubleshooting

Using this method of installing software has one major drawback; there is no reporting back to a central location about installation issues or configuration errors. For installation issues related to the MSI installer itself, you will need to enable general logging of all MSI installations. If the installer finishes, but something is wrong in the configuration, the Viz Pilot Configuration program logs to the file %PROGRAMDATA%\Vizrt\Logs\Viz Pilot x.y\configuration.log.

Pilot Data Server with Graphic Hub Database

To install Pilot Data Server with a Graphic Hub database use the following parameters:

• CONNECTION_METHOD="GH": Indicates that the Pilot database is running on a Graphic Hub

• GH_HOST: Hostname of the Graphic Hub REST server

• GH_PORT: Graphic Hub REST port

• GH_USER_ID: Username for accessing the Graphic Hub REST server
  For example:

msiexec /i <path/to/msi> CONNECTION_METHOD="GH" GH_HOST="localhost" GH_PORT="19398" GH_USER_ID="Guest" /quiet

Pilot Data Server with Oracle Database

To install Pilot Data Server with an Oracle database use the following parameters:

• CONNECTION_METHOD="Oracle": Indicates that the Pilot database is running on Oracle

• ORACLE_USERNAME: Oracle database username

• ORACLE_PASSWORD: Oracle database password

• ORACLE_DATA_SOURCE: Oracle data source containing Oracle server host and the database (or instance) name
  For example:

msiexec /i <path/to/msi> CONNECTION_METHOD="Oracle" ORACLE_USERNAME="pilot700" ORACLE_PASSWORD="pilot700" ORACLE_DATA_SOURCE="bdvcpdb/vizrtdb" /quiet