Mailbag: More information about Workflow extensions for VS 2005 setup

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Question:

I would like to automate the installation of the Visual Studio 2005 extensions for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation) setup package.  How can I install this package in silent mode?  Also, if this package fails to install, where can I find log files to troubleshoot installation problems?

Answer:

Silent install command lines:

To run the Visual Studio 2005 extensioins for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation) setup package in silent mode, you can use steps similar to the following:

  1. Download the self-extracting executable setup package from this location
  2. Extract the contents using a compression tool such as WinZip
  3. From the extracted directory, run setup.exe /quiet

The setup.exe in the extracted directory also supports the following command line switches that might be useful depending on your installation scenario:

  • /passive - run setup in unattended mode, which displays a progress dialog but requires no user interaction
  • /norestart - suppress any reboots that are requested during installation so you can defer them until later
  • /log <file name> - specify a path for the setup log files (if you do not want to use the default log file names listed below)

Log files:

The Visual Studio 2005 extensioins for .NET Framework 3.0 (Windows Workflow Foundation) setup package creates the following log files:

  • %temp%\Setup(<timestamp>).htm - a summary log file that describes high level actions taken during setup
  • %temp%\Setup(<timestamp>).log - the verbose MSI log file created during setup; a link to this log file is also placed at the bottom of the summary HTML log file

For both log files, the <timestamp> value is dynamically generated based on the system clock time when setup is launched.  It takes the form of MMDDYY HHMMSS (month, day, year, hours in 24 hour clock time, minutes, seconds).