Silent Install of T-Splines Plug-in for Rhino

[Anonymous]

Good morning,

As an Academic Resource Centre customer, we've downloaded the Autodesk T-Splines plugin for Rhino 5, and obtained the network licence and serial number, which is all activated and running on our Autodesk network licence server.

However, the installer for the T-Splines plugin appears to have some issues.

• The option for creating a deployment appears to be missing
• Attempting to run the MSI install within the setup package comes up with an error "Cannot access network location INSTALLDIRadlm" - this even happened running command prompt as an admin and launching MSIEXEC with the same paramaters
• If you do perform an install using the setup.exe and run as an admin user, uninstall also fails with the same error as above because it's attempting to uninstall the same MSI that setup has for some reason.

I tried the version from Academic Resource Centre and the installer from the T-Splines website, both came up with exactly the same errors.

I've also tried to run the setup with a series of switches to batch install an Autodesk product, something like:

setup.exe /t /qb /language en-US /c TSPLINESPLUGINX64: INSTALLDIR="%ProgramFiles%\Autodesk\T-Splines for Rhino" ACADSERIALPREFIX="XXX" ACADSERIALNUMBER="YYYYYYYY" ADLM_PRODKEY="A46G1" ADLM_EULA_COUNTRY="en-US" InstallLevel=5 ACADSTANDALONENETWORKTYPE="3" ACADLICENSESERVERTYPE="Single Server License" ACADLICENSETYPE="Network License" ACADSERVERPATH="serveraddress 000000000000"

This only appears to work if running as a user with admin rights, not for example if as a system user, so deployment with either SCCM or Zenworks would prove to be incorrect.  Also an uninstall would still fail for the same reason as above.

Is there any way the installer can be checked and possibly a solution found?

Regards

Warren.

[KMLCAD]

Hello wazzaw, since this case was escalated to Salesforce, please be sure to make any correspondence to the salesforce agent as they will now help you resolve your issue.

Anyone else in the community is also still welcome to answer his post if they may have a solution.

[m_latz]

I'm not sure if I can help you. But if you upload the installation log from T-Splines installation I can take a look.

The log file is created during the install in the %temp% folder and should have a name like "TSplinesForRhino64.log" or something similiar.

It is also possible that it is something like MSI*.log.

regards

Markus

[Anonymous]

Markus,

Running the MSI natively comes up with the error "Cannot access network location INSTALLDIRadlm" and the randomly named MSI log file in the %temp% folder only shows the following lines:

Error 1606. Could not access network location INSTALLDIRadlm.
Error 1606. Could not access network location INSTALLDIRadlm.
Error 1606. Could not access network location INSTALLDIRadlm.
=== Logging stopped: 15/01/2016 10:47:27 ===

Naturally I've checked that the SYSTEM user account (which is what both Zenworks and SCCM would install as) doesn't have any folder redirection, which they don't.

The setup with all the switches installs as an admin user (not SYSTEM user) but then fails to remove with the ADLM error as above.

[m_latz]

To analyze I need the full msi log file. If you install under "system context" %temp% is redirected to %systemroot%\temp.

To enable full MSI logging in general, create the following registry keys:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer

"Logging"="voicewarmupx"

"Debug"=dword:00000007

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\WindowsUpdate\Trace

"Flags"=dword:00000016

"Level"=dword:00000004

See here for additional infos:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2545723

Then please upload the log files.

regards

Markus

PS: Do not forget to delete the keys after ...

[Anonymous]

I used the MSI command /L*V to write a verbose log file (which does similar to what you posted), which gave me much more information.  Notable are these lines from the install log:

MSI (c) (EC:9C) [12:09:15:059]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding Autodesk.156A2FBD_DFC6_4DE0_8EAA_12F01193E0B0 property. Its value is 'C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\'.
MSI (c) (EC:9C) [12:09:15:059]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding AdLM.156A2FBD_DFC6_4DE0_8EAA_12F01193E0B0 property. Its value is 'C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\AdLM\'.
MSI (c) (EC:9C) [12:09:15:059]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding INSTALLDIR.156A2FBD_DFC6_4DE0_8EAA_12F01193E0B0 property. Its value is 'C:\ProgramData\Autodesk\AdLM\ASR\'.
MSI (c) (EC:9C) [12:09:46:595]: Note: 1: 1314 2: INSTALLDIRadlm
MSI (c) (EC:9C) [12:09:46:595]: Note: 1: 1606 2: INSTALLDIRadlm
Error 1606. Could not access network location INSTALLDIRadlm.
MSI (c) (EC:9C) [12:09:48:431]: Product: Autodesk T-Splines Plug-in for Rhino version 4.0 r11183 (64) -- Error 1606. Could not access network location INSTALLDIRadlm.

MSI error 1314 before 1606 states that the property attempting to be written either is being written to an existing folder or property, or it does not exist.

I've attached the full MSI log.

[m_latz]

What is the value on your computer for the key (see screenshot):

[Anonymous]

The path is exactly the same as your screen shot, having checked:

C:\Program Files\Rhinoceros 5 (64-bit)\System\

[m_latz]

Okay looks like few custom action are forgotten to place in the "Admin Exec Sequence". The only way to fix this is to create a transformation (.mst) for the original .msi file.

Two options:

• I create the .mst file for you (you can check what I've done with orca) Never trust code from persons you do not know 😉
• I try to explain and you create yourself with orca or similiar tool.

regards

Markus

[Anonymous]

Markus,

Thank you for that.  I do suspect though that really Autodesk need to take a look at the installer for this and either:

• Allow creation of a deployment install as per other Autodesk products, so that the serialisation etc is captured and placed in a deployment image
• Fix the MSI file to ensure that when called as a SYSTEM or other admin user it doesn't rely on the setup executable to do its work.  Even calling the MSI with the property ADSK_SETUP_EXE=1 appeared to fail.

If you can explain which properties should be in the AdminExecSequence I can use Orca myself to do this (I'm well versed in it)

Regards

Warren.

[m_latz]

Okay I try to explain:

I think the problem starts with the property change:

MSI (c) (EC:9C) [12:09:15:044]: Doing action: DIRCA_NEWRETARGETABLEPROPERTY1.D417096D122F4A308076E3294D6E7735
Action 12:09:15: DIRCA_NEWRETARGETABLEPROPERTY1.D417096D122F4A308076E3294D6E7735.
Action start 12:09:15: DIRCA_NEWRETARGETABLEPROPERTY1.D417096D122F4A308076E3294D6E7735.
MSI (c) (EC:9C) [12:09:15:044]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding NEWRETARGETABLEPROPERTY1.D417096D122F4A308076E3294D6E7735 property. Its value is 'INSTALLDIRadlm'.

If you check in orca how this property gets his value, you see:

NEWRETARGETABLEPROPERTY1.D417096D122F4A308076E3294D6E7735=[RhinoInstallLocationDefault]adlm

Before, you have an addtional CA in the normal install execute sequence:

SetRhinoInstallLocationDefault (MSI Type 51) which does the following:

RhinoInstallLocationDefault=[INSTALLDIR]

(property name)=(property value)

What I see from your log file is, that the CA "SetRhinoInstallLocationDefault" is never called. So it has the value, as in your error message.

As workaround you can set manually this property. There are also a few other CA's that are not called, but I'm not sure if htey are really required.

I've tried to install interactive as admin and it always worked.

Because I have executed the msi file the same way Autodesk does:

setup.exe runs and creates a temporary .mst file (in %temp% folder). Then calls the .msi with that transformation. So I grabbed that .mst file and modified that. Then you can also run the msi direct with msiexec, or embed in SCCM.

I have attached the grabbed .mst file that you can see what I mean.

If you create an deployment with the setup.exe program (if there is that option) it is the same. Setup.exe gets all information from you and put it into the .mst file. Then calls during the silent install msiexec with the msi and mst.

regards

Markus

[m_latz · Accepted solution]

Okay, had some time and tried with a Rhino and TSpline test installation. And yes, I also received the InstallDiradlm error.

But as mentioned previously, there was something missing in the sequence table. I add this with a transformation and now I can install completely silent with:

msiexec /i TSplinesForRhino.msi TRANSFORMS="TS.mst" /qn

Uninstall with:

msiexec /X{06A53CDE-94E9-442D-A9C9-03B22BC9CE08} /qn

You can try, what you need is the transformation file attached here. Check what I have modified ....

I have installed in "trial mode", because I have no network license, so you have to adapt some other properties. But your main problem ist solved.

regards

Markus

[Anonymous]

Markus,

Many thanks for your assistance with this, much appreciated.

Based on the additional properties that you set in the MST transform, I ran through an installation using the setup.exe as admin, so it creates the MSI and MST transform in the %temp% folder and grabbed those from there once I'd added all the network licence information.

I then did a compare with the MST you provided and found out that the only two properties that were missing when the MST was created with the serialisation were the two you added in the InstallSequence UI table:

I added those back in to the MST and re-saved the transform with those changes.  Everything is now working correctly and as intended.

However, that does still pose the question of the installer that it should specify those two properties in there originally, or even why there isn't a deployment creation option for its setup, which would have saved time (and indeed would have created the MSI  / MST in the same way Autodesk do for other products)

Everything installs correctly, the plugin talk to our Autodesk licence server and it can be uninstalled, so all good.  Many many thanks! 🙂

[m_latz]

Fine, that it works now !

regards

Markus

[Anonymous]

Markus,

One final thing.  For the installer to play ball, if you just have the MSI and MST in one folder, I found that it also needed T-SplinesPlug-InforRhinoConfig.pit to be present in the same folder - this is normally in the x64 directory of the downloaded installer.

Not having this file present resulted in an error because it seems to refer to it for some product information.

Regards - and thanks for all your help!

Warren.

[m_latz]

Yes, thank's for your remark / confirm.

I supposed, that this file is necessary, because the .pit files contains information for license management / product management.

But I could not try, because I have no license and in "trial mode" it was not necessary.

And thank you for your problem, because it is always a challenge, to find solutions 🙂

regards

Markus