Automate Your MSMQ Installation
Two New Operating Systems Bring Two New, Exciting Ways to Install (or Uninstall) MSMQ
This week we talk about automated installation (and new in Vista and Windows Server 2008, uninstallation) of MSMQ via unattend files. The Optional Component setup story has changed a bit since Windows Server 2003, but have no fear, we’ve got the info you need to be ready for installing Message Queuing on Vista and Windows Server 2008, including unattend file samples!
The biggest change in Optional Component unattended installation from Windows Server 2003 is the file format. Windows Server 2003 used .ini files, while Vista and Windows Server 2008 use XML files. The other big change is that you can now uninstall MSMQ components via unattend uninstall, which was not possible with sysocmgr.exe on pre-Vista operating systems.
Operating System |
Supported OC Installer |
Unattend File Format |
Windows Server 2003 |
Sysocmgr.exe |
INI |
Windows Vista |
OCSetup.exe |
XML |
Windows Server 2008 |
ServerManagerCmd.exe |
XML |
The Optional Component installers all have the concept of a “language-neutral” name, a name by which to refer to a specific component regardless the UI language on the computer being installed on.
MSMQ Component (not exact UI names, as they vary from OS to OS) |
MSMQ 3.0 Language-Neutral name |
Vista Language-Neutral Name |
Windows Server 2008 Language-Neutral Name |
Top-level “component” |
MSMQ |
MSMQ-Container* |
MSMQ-Services |
Message Queuing Server (aka Common in MSMQ 3.0) |
MSMQ_Core |
MSMQ-Server* |
MSMQ-Server |
Active Directory Integration |
MSMQ_ADIntegrated |
MSMQ-ADIntegration |
MSMQ-Directory |
HTTP Support |
MSMQ_HTTPSupport |
MSMQ-HTTP |
MSMQ-HTTP-Support |
Triggers |
MSMQ_TriggersService |
MSMQ-Triggers |
MSMQ-Triggers |
Routing Support |
MSMQ_RoutingSupport |
N/A |
MSMQ-Routing |
Downlevel Client Support |
MSMQ_MQDSService |
N/A |
MSMQ-Win2000 |
Multicasting Support |
N/A |
MSMQ-Multicast |
MSMQ-Multicasting |
MSMQ DCOM Proxy |
N/A |
MSMQ-DCOMProxy |
MSMQ-DCOM |
* MSMQ-Container on Vista doesn’t actually represent a component or service by itself, so installing it won’t do much for you. At the same time, trying to install just MSMQ-Server won’t get you where you’re going, either. If you want just the very basic MSMQ server functionality, you need to install MSMQ-Container and MSMQ-Server together.
See the following posts for details on unattended installs with Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008.
—Jolie Boushey