Silent Installation and Silent Registration

[EViews Steve]

We've had this question come up a lot so I thought I would put all of our techniques for doing a silent installation and registration of EViews into a single topic.

NOTE: the following was written for EViews 9, but will also work for EViews 10. Just call the EViews 10 installers instead...

Performing a silent installation
We currently don't provide an MSI installer, only an EXE. So to perform a silent installation, you'll have to first generate a recorded "script" file by installing EViews onto a target machine once. To generate the script, run our EXE installer with these parameters:

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EViews9Installer.exe -r -f1c:\files\script.iss

The -r parameter puts the installer in record mode and the -f1<path> parameter specifies where to save the script. By installing EViews this way, every mouse click or text entered by you during the installation will be recorded into the script. At the end of the recording, you'll have a script file you can use to re-run our installer without any user input needed. You can "playback" the script by running the installer with these parameters:

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EViews9Installer.exe -s -f1c:\files\script.iss

The -s parameter tells the installer to run in silent mode.

EViews Licensing Issues with silent installs
Typically, our installers ask for an EViews serial number during installation in order to know how to setup EViews licensing properly on the target machine. This means that this serial number will be "recorded" into the installer script if you are in record mode. This is ideal for those of you that purchased a concurrent or an unlimited lab license because all of your users will share the single serial number (typically registered on a local EViews License server).

However, for standalone license users where each user has a different serial number, doing a silent install requires a few more steps. When EViews runs for the first time after an install, if a standalone license was entered during the installation, EViews will automatically pre-fill this serial number into the Registration dialog that appears. This is done for convenience so that our typical user does not have enter the serial number twice. But if you wish to perform multiple silent installs each with a different serial number, you will want to prevent EViews from remembering the serial number entered during installation. To do this, we provide a special checkbox on the installer dialog that asks for the serial number:

EViews Installer with Record Mode Checkbox with Circle.png (80.13 KiB) Viewed 9952 times

(this checkbox only appears when the installer is running in RECORD mode)

During the recording, make sure this checkbox is NOT checked and proceed with the installation. Now when EViews is run for the first time on the target machine, it will not pre-fill in the serial number on the Registration dialog. This requires the user to manually enter his/her own serial number, which you can provide via an email or however you wish.

Silent EViews Registration for Standalone licenses
To prevent your users from having to register their own serial number upon first run, you could take an extra step and perform the registration for them beforehand (for EViews 8 and newer versions only). To do this, we provide a way to register a serial number using command line parameters. To silently register a serial number, call the EViews COM executable (ends with ".COM" instead of ".EXE" -- this file is located in the same EViews folder as the EXE) like this:

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EViews9.com /registerlicense "XXXXXXXX - XXXXXXXX - XXXXXXXX" "Name"

(the first parameter is your full EViews serial number with dashes and the second is the name you want this serial number to be registered with.)

Running this on the target machine will register the serial number and "tie" it to that machine. EViews should now fully installed and registered.

Steve

[jrock10]

I tried to follow your instructions and I'm able to install Eviews 9 silently, but your command line switch /registerlicense doesn't work for me. It keeps giving me an error saying invalid switch. I tried running the switch using the .com file and the .exe file. Any suggestions to make this work?

[EViews Steve]

I should've mentioned that the registerlicense switch was only added to EViews 8 & 9. It won't work for EViews 7 and older.

Here's a screenshot of what the command looks like when I run it:

RegisterLicense.png (24.04 KiB) Viewed 9851 times

(obviously, you'll have to provide your actual serial number here)

If you still have issues, send me an email (steve@eviews.com) and provide the following:
1. Your EViews serial number
2. The text of the DOS command you are trying to run. A screenshot of the DOS prompt will work.
3. A screenshot of the error you are getting back from EViews.
4. The build date of the copy of EViews you have installed. To get this, run EViews, then go to Help->About EViews to see the build date.
5. Finally, a link to this forum topic.

Steve

[Phreeze]

hello, is there a way to silently install patches ? I want to distribute them in an SCCMpackage,because it takes way to long to go install them manually on 60 PCs...

[EViews Steve]

The method I described above also works for our patch EXE files.

[tcoram]

The method I described above also works for our patch EXE files.

Do the patches require a .iss file as well, or will a simple "installer.exe -s" be fine?

[EViews Jason]

The procedure for patches is exactly the same. So yes you will need to create an iss file.

[uacasper]

To be up-front, we have a 25-seat lab license. It is not concurrent or unlimited, but unlike a standalone license, it is a shared serial number for all machines. The initial post here reads to me that remembering the license number in the install script would be all that is needed, but that does not silently register them. Instead, EViews opens to the register dialog window. I am assuming the user doing the registration must be an admin, but regardless, I can't trust students to deal with that!

When I use the /registerlicense switch, it also does not register. EViews opens to the register dialog window just as if I hadn't used any switch. The "Autoregister..." button shows the information provided when recording the installation script, and does not change based on anything I provide with the /registerlicense switch. (The "invalid switch" error mentioned in another response is because the EViews GUI is trying to interpret the switch text. Using single quotes, ', instead of double quotes, ", generates a different error.)

So, I can silently deploy the software, but not silently register it. What good is that? If any kind of license should allow for silent install AND registration, it should be a lab/classroom where all the installs are automated and nobody is an admin!

Any advice?

[EViews Steve]

uacasper:

Support for the "/registerlicense" parameter was first introduced in EViews 8, around October, 2012. It wasn't available right when EViews 8 was first released.

Are you using EViews 8?

If you are, please make sure you're using a version of our installer that was created after January 15, 2014, as that was when we fixed a bug related to using /registerlicense with an 80L license.

If you need a link to the latest installer for EViews 8, send me an email at steve@eviews.com, refer to this forum post, and I'll send it to you.

If you're using EViews 9 and the /registerlicense doesn't seem to be working, please email me your serial number and your EViews 9 build date and I'll look into it for you.

Steve

[uacasper]

Just a quick update...

The /registerlicense command does not work unless the current location is in the "EViews 9" installation directory, regardless of using the full path.

Thus:

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"%ProgramFiles%\EViews 9\EViews9.com" /registerlicense "XXXXXXXX - XXXXXXXX - XXXXXXXX" "Name"

will NOT work unless the current location is "%programfiles%\Eviews 9".

Starting an elevated CMD prompt or running a script will not start in that location, so the user/script must first explicitly change to the EViews install location in order to register the license. I.E.

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cd %programfiles%
cd "eviews 9"
EViews9.com" /registerlicense "XXXXXXXX - XXXXXXXX - XXXXXXXX" "Name"

Hope this helps the next person.

[EViews Steve]

Ah, that is a bug with our EViews9.com proxy. This will be fixed in the next patch.

[uacasper]

Just in case it is helpful to anyone, here is a batch file that will silently install Eviews (64-bit), then silently update it, then silently register it with a standalone license number. It does require someone to pre-"record" the install and update (using the -r -f1<path> switches).

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@echo off
IF EXIST "%programfiles%\EViews 9\EViews9_x64.exe" GOTO:EOF

SET DeployShareUNC=\\<fileserver\share path>\EViews

:: First install EViews with a recorded installer script
SET InstallerName=EViews9Installer(64-bit).exe
"%DeployShareUNC%\%InstallerName%" -s -f1%DeployShareUNC%\eviews9.iss
>nul timeout 2
CALL :_function

:: Next install the update with a recorded installer script
SET InstallerName=EViews9x64Patch_090216.exe
"%DeployShareUNC%\%InstallerName%" -s -f1%DeployShareUNC%\eviews9update.iss
>nul timeout 2
CALL :_function

:: Finally, register EViews to this machine
cd "%programfiles%\EViews 9\"
EViews9_x64.com /registerlicense "XXXXXXXX - XXXXXXXX - XXXXXXXX" "name"

EXIT /B %ErrorLevel%

:: A function to wait for the installer to finish as START /WAIT doesn't work with these installers
:_function
:_loop
>nul timeout 3
for /f %%T in ('tasklist.exe /FI "IMAGENAME eq %InstallerName%"') DO (
   Set FOUND=0
   IF "%%~T"=="%InstallerName:~0,25%" SET FOUND=1
)
If %FOUND%==1 GOTO :_loop
EXIT /B 0