IT admin cannot install except manually

[sokunAE76J]

In order to get Meshmixer approved by my school district, they need to be able to package it and put it on to Software Center. They will not allow manual installs. They have not been able to do this. Below is their email to me:

To recap: We tried two versions of this and neither could proceed past technical challenges, if you would like additional support we’ll need clearer requirements from either you or your department. Here is a quick blurb from one of the threads that mentions some of the issues we hit:

"Originally I was blocked from getting the installer to work unattended. A know bug was preventing the command line switches for a silent install from working (in version 3.2). I was directed to a beta version of 3.3 (which is just now full release) and it does fix that issue. However, the program now refuses to install at all in any circumstance other than manually. I’ll post something on the support forum (no phone contact I can find) and see if I can get a response again.

We have taken this as far as we could without additional facts. That hasn’t changed since April."

[mdavis22569]

It's an Add-in vs an actual program  ... I don't think you'll be able to "automate it"

You'll have to do it manually and make sure it's in the Add-in Manager 

[m_latz]

Just took a short look into it.

And it is a quite simple installation and it should be easy to "repackage" as msi with a few prerequisites ( Visual C++ 2012, Visual C++ 2015, ....).

Is a "silent" repackaged setup.exe or "MeshMixer4School.msi" an option for you ?

regards

Markus

[sokunAE76J]

This looks promising. Thanks! I forwarded the link to my IT person. He should get back to you if he needs more info.

[sokunAE76J]

Here is the response I got:

The info in those replies is fairly mixed. The first comment seems to confirm our concerns. The second states the approach we already took repeatedly, but then asks “is MeshMixer4School.msi and option”? If that exists, I don’t know how to find it? I show no record of such a freely available download on the internet. If I Google it as a keyword the only thing that comes up is your forum post.

If you can provide such a file, we could look into this one last time as that would be a reasonable lead.

• But before you hunt endlessly for such a file,  mdavis22569 (posting above) directly contradicts him. Additionally, the author starts by suggesting the exact approach we cite having taken repeatedly across multiple versions. Did he not read the first post? Or did he read it and not understand it? It doesn’t hurt to post back and ask where you would find: MeshMixer4School.msi. maybe just do that.

[natasha.l]

Hello @sokunAE76J, 

There is no .exe or .msi specifically for educational for this product. 

Please review some of the information below, it may help you find a workaround for what you need to accomplish for your institution, our "silent" installs do not mean there are no displayed windows that may pop-up. 

Options & Parameters for Deployment commands (applies to most all Autodesk products)

When adding MSI, MSP and EXE installers to the Additional Software section of an Autodesk deployment

Thank you for posting. 

Please "Accept As Solution" if a reply or replies have helped resolve the issue or answered your question, to help others in the community.

[m_latz]

I try to explain different:

The current installation program could not executed in silent mode.

But I could "repackage" this software for you as msi package, if this is an option for your IT.

The "MeshMixer4School.msi" does not yet exists (was only a fantasy name from me), but if this is an option for your IT I will create it for your school (without costs, but only for your school).

So the main question is, if a MSI package that can be executed in silent mode is an option for your IT department when it comes from an "untrusted source" (me).

We do this for a lot of other customers when they have problems with the standard installation packages from Autodesk, or want some special/additional settings.

regards

Markus

[sokunAE76J]

This is the answer I received from IT:
Packaging the MSI isn't the issue. Our SCCM admin has now packaged this as an MSI three times (1st for 3.2, then again for 3.3 because there was a known flaw in 3.2 with silent installs that the vendor has since fixed in 3.3, then a third time trying out an option of pre-installing one or the pre-reqs that kicks off mid-process).

Bill believes the part that snags isn't the core of the installer process but when it initiates the pre-req installers. Those aren't playing nicely (to poorly paraphrase him based on my more simple understanding of his notes). Knowing that: Even if the offer from the unknown person in the forum wasn't a security concern (which it is), I'm still not confident it would be helpful as they are indicating they'd try what we've already tried in multiple ways.

[m_latz · Accepted solution]

The MeshMixer software needs Microsoft Visual C++ 2012 Redistributable (x64) - 11.0.61030 and Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 Redistributable (x64) - 14.0.24212.

These runtime installers are from Microsoft and used by many software packages from Autodesk and other vendors. This could not be a problem to use silent in a SCCM environment.

I tried only to offer my help and I respect that you want to solve on your own.

regards

Markus

[Anonymous]

I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to add how I pushed out the program and how it has worked for me. I use PDQ Deploy to push the program to the machine by hostname or IP. First I install the Meshmixer program on a machine to get the desktop shortcut. I copy the shortcut (Meshmixer.lnk) and executable (Autodesk_Meshmixer_v3p5_Win64.exe) to create a package in PDQ that runs from the following install.cmd file:

Autodesk_Meshmixer_v3p5_Win64.exe /S /D=C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Meshmixer

xcopy /I /Y /Q "%CD%\Meshmixer.lnk" "C:\Users\Public\Desktop"

This returns code 1223 still, but the files are all in the right directory and run from the desktop shortcut just fine, which works for us. Meshmixer uses NSIS to create the installer so if you want more information on those installer switches look here https://nsis.sourceforge.io/Main_Page.