Silent Install of Grasshopper over network

I have successfully deployed Rhino 5 to multiple machines on the network via SCCM ( Microsoft System Centre Config Manager ).

I also need to do the same with the grasshopper plugin, as far as I can tell this software does not support unattended installations, and I cannot find a MSI version that would support the same function

Is there a way to install this software silently over a network, or can you provide exactly where grasshopper writes its files so then I could attempt to script the install to do simple file copies.

Regards,

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on February 20, 2013 at 3:46am

Hi Dan,

unfortunately I don't know much about the installer, it's the one part of Grasshopper I don't write. However the next release should be using the Rhino Installer Engine (which is basically a zip file with the rhi extension). I think until that happens there's little point in solving a silent install for the current installer.

Sorry for not being much help...

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Baptist BENOIST on May 28, 2013 at 10:46am

Erf, as I am working a package management system for my company, I was searching for the simmiliar thing.

Is there a way to contact (directly or not) the original writer of the installer ?

Perhaps you are even allowed to share its configuration as Grasshopper is free (0$), you are moving to another solution and there is no apparent reason to keep it private.

Facts are that I must get a silent install of Grasshopper for Rhino 4.0 (without Rhino Installer Engine) so any information allowing me to get things done would be highly appreciated. In the worst scenario, I will have to perform retro-engineering just to build another installer by myself =/

Regards,

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on May 28, 2013 at 11:32am

RHI is written by Brian Gillespie and Steve Baer. If you want to discuss details and stuff you're better off talking to Brian: brian@mcneel.com

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Baptist BENOIST on May 28, 2013 at 12:29pm

By RHI do you mean RHI files which are parts of the Rhino Installer Engine ?

My problem is related with the installer used on the Rhino 4 compatible version (which I suppose is using Wize Installation Wizard) not with the latest one which is only distributed with Rhino 5.

Anyways, I will try to contact him and see how I can get things working as expected, thanks for the info...

Permalink Reply by David Rutten on May 28, 2013 at 1:03pm

Ah I see. Brian did not write Wise but he may be able to help out. Andy leBihan is another Wise expert we have, he can be reached at andy@mcneel.com

Though if it's a specific question about Wise, then I recommend going to whatever forum they have.

David Rutten

david@mcneel.com

Poprad, Slovakia

Permalink Reply by Baptist BENOIST on May 29, 2013 at 7:53am

OK,

Wise seems to have been abandonned by Symantec now (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wise_Solutions,_Inc. ) and the default silent install switch they had is buggy with GH installers =/

I wrote an email to andy and brian to see what information can I have...

Thanks again for your help

Permalink Reply by Dan Padgett on May 28, 2013 at 4:48pm

Hi Mate,

Just thought i would let you know i was able to deploy grasshopper to all the PC's in my environment with a workaround, i used a combination of file copies and group policies. (File copy was a batch file executed through sccm)

If you would like more information you can mail me at dan.padgett@utas.edu.au

Permalink Reply by Baptist BENOIST on May 29, 2013 at 7:59am

I CCed you in my mail to give you updates about it. As explained in my email, I do not primarly intend to use custom install scripts. This is justified by the facts that maintaining is generally harder and more time consumming than a one-liner command.

Thanks anyway for the reply, your previous work may be usefull to me in function of the evolution of the discussion...

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