AAMEE 3.0 and Install Package Error

[itordersca]

Hello.

I'm hopoing someone can help me with an issue I have using AAMEE 3.0 and trying to make install packages for CS6 for Windows.

I am using Illustrator as the initial test package but when tyring to run the .msi (on a Windows 7 32-bit system) I get an error that says...  This installer cannot be run directly in UI mode.  Please deploy the MSI in silent mode.

I'm pretty sure I have followed the instructions correctly but don't understand why I am seeing this message.  I have read about lots of people having issues with AAMEE but I'm not trying to do anything fancy with the package.  Basically just a straight install of Illustrator in this case.  I eventually need to make packages for several products but this is my first go at this.

Any help on why I am seeing this message would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[saranshkatariya]

AAMEE does not support UI based installation of the package. AAMEE only supports silent installation. You should use this command line to install the package on windows -

msiexec.exe /i <path of the msi> /qn

where

<path of msi> - This is the path of the msi created in the AAMEE output package.

You must run the command prompt with administrative privileges to successfully deploy the package.

Thanks,

Saransh katariya | Member of technical staff | Adobe Systems 

[itordersca]

Having our users use a command line to do these installs is not going to work.  How do we package these so that this doesn't have to happen?  We basically need to get the Windows side done the same way that AAMEE does the Mac install packages where the users simply has to double-click on the correct file and the installation proceeds.

[saranshkatariya]

Hi,

AAMEE tool, by design is made to help IT admins install Adobe Creative suite products on the client machines silently. The ideal way is to create a package using AAMEE and then deploy this package on client machines using tools like SCCM, ARD, Absolute Manage etc.

AAMEE does not support UI based installation. I agree that mac users can double click on pkg to install the products. But the support statement of AAMEE does not specify this method of deployment and this is not a tested scenario either.

The command line mentioned in my post above is very straight forward and easy. Please try it and let me know if you face any issues.

Thanks,

Saransh Katariya | Member of technical staff | Adobe Systems

[itordersca]

I have tried it.  And as stated, it's not an option for our environment.  That coupled with the facts that the install runs in the background and leaves "exclusion" products behind in most of the products is not a solution we can provide to the end users.  It seems as though Adobe is/was trying to just throw something together to try and appese larger environments but AAMEE certainly doesn't seem as though it will work for us.  Now that the CS products require the specific registration info they do pretty much destroys the options we had for providing this software to the users.  The number of man-hours required now will be off the chart.

[Kumaresh_Kulal]

Hello,

After playing around with this for some time, I managed to get it to work with the command line script you provided above.  The question I have is, Is there any way to get this to throw up a prompt on the screen to at least let me know when the install is completed?  Even if it is just a dialog stating it is done.

thank you

[mark30]

I need this functionality, too. It is really quite ridiculous that you can't create some sort of installer that at least shows a progress bar. That would be enough for me. With the addition of the Adobe ID requirement, I really don't want to just throw the installer up on a share, but we may be forced to. It's also interesting how the "staff" responses don't address the real issue. In this question, or any other forum that this similar question is asked.

What I really want is something similar to the Acrobat deployment tool, which allows you to encode the serial number into the installer and add a few customizations. This would be ideal for our environment. I was hopeful when I heard about AAMEE 3.0, but, in reality, it just seems to be AAMEE 2 with support for CS6.

[Karl_Gibson · Accepted solution]

Mark,

Sorry you feel like the question is being avoided, that is not the case and Saransh answered the question earlier in his response. AAMEE is an Enterprise Volume tool designed to assist with the Deployment of CS across hundreds or thousands of machines and for that reason the tool was designed to preserialize , give advanced configuration options and create a package optimized for Silent deployment to client machines without user interaction. The standard installer continues to provide a GUI and progress bar for users.

Also AAMEE is designed to be used with a 3rd party deployment tool, and we have seen in the past people utilize them so that a progress or installation notification is displayed for user's if so desired.

We will take your feedback on board and look to see if a progress bar is something we can implement in the future for windows as it is present on Mac.

Cheers

Karl

CS Enterprise Systems Engineer

[mark30]

Thanks for the quick response to my post, but itordersca and PHXUser raised valid questions as well and those haven't been responded to. Adobe is a major player in the education market. For the most part, education environments don't push applications to the end user. I would like a way to build an installer that the user can just double-click on which includes the serial number and an adobe ID. This protects us and Adobe, as it prevents us from having to have serial numbers floating around out there that the user enters as part of the installation process.

yes, I can write a batch file that will install CS6. However, the user has no idea that it's running, or that it's done, other than icons start showing up. If this is what I have to do, it's what I have to do, but it is very, very far from ideal.

Now, let me pay Adobe a compliment. The Acrobat deployment tools are very, very nice. They make sense. You can inject the serial number into the installer. You can adjust some of the initial settings and suppress the EULA. You can do lots of other stuff that I can't remember, and even more that I haven't used. I was very hopeful that the same folks who diligently and thoughtfully built that tool would just extend that tool to work with CS6. Is there any hope of that ever happening?

[saranshkatariya]

Hi,

AAMEE 3.1 created packages supports UI based installation also (double click installer). AAMEE 3.1 can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/devnet/creativesuite/enterprisedeployment.html . UI based installation is supported only for packages created using AAMEE 3.1 and not AAMEE 3.1 beta or earlier versions. I have written a forum post to explain this in more detail. The link for the post is http://forums.adobe.com/message/4698390#4698390. This is just like you wanted it, a minimalistic progress bar so that the user can see something running.

Please use AAMEE 3.1 and let us know if you see any issues in UI based installation,

Thanks,

Saransh Katariya | Adobe Systems | skatariy@adobe.com