How to install Sage 300 CRE client using a script (Silent Install)

If you have a large number of workstations, you can use a script to silently install the software on client workstations.

The solution shown is applicable for new installs, version upgrades, or revision upgrades (17.2.8 and higher)

You must complete these steps before proceeding with the workstation install:

• Finish the Sage 300 CRE Accounting Server install.
• Make a note of the path to the setup.exe file in the WinInst folder where Sage 300 CRE server is installed.
  E.g. \\\Timberline Office\9.5\Accounting\WinInst\setup.exe.
• You must log on to the client workstation as a user with full administrative rights (see User's Guide on " Installing to a workstation").

Follow these steps to perform a silent install on each client workstation, the process installs both the prerequisites and the program files:

1. On each client workstation, run the command line from a Run dialog (Run), an Administrator command prompt (Cmd), or a batch file (.bat).
2. The script in the command line refers to the setup.exe file in the WinInst folder (on the Accounting server) and requires a command that forces the install to run silently. For example, if the path and server name is orbfile01\testserver, type:
   " \\orbfile01\testserver\Timberline Office\9.5\Accounting\WinInst\setup.exe" /silent
   
   Important: Note the space after setup.exe, before the /silent command. Also, quotes are required in the path because the folder name Timberline Office contains a space.
   
   When the silent install is running, the log files for the prerequisites are written to the Temp folder. The list of log files will vary based on the prerequisites that are already installed on the machine and on the version of Sage 300 CRE. See the Attachments area below for an example.
3. After the silent install is completed successfully, a log file called thatsall.log is written to the Temp folder of the machine. Hint: In Windows Explorer, type %temp% in the address bar to locate it. The thatsall.log demonstrates that the installation completed successfully; it's not necessary to open this file.
4. The workstation requires a reboot. You can reboot the machine manually. Or, add an instruction in the command line in step 2 to automatically reboot the machine after the installation is done - to do so, replace the script in step 2 with this: (in the example, the path and server name is orbfile01\testserver; replace the text with your server name and path)
   " \\orbfile01\testserver\Timberline Office\9.5\Accounting\WinInst\setup.exe" /silent FORCE_SILENT_REBOOT=true
   
   Important: The thatsall.log is automatically deleted when you reboot the machine. In other words, if the script in the command line instructs an automatic reboot after the silent install completes (see the script in step 4), you will not find the thatsall.log file. Note that the log files for the prerequisites are not deleted after the reboot.

Other notes:

You can use a script to create a log file for debugging the prerequisites install. In the example below, the script runs the silent install without rebooting and creates a log file call prereq.log in the Documents folder. (Again, note the space before the /silent and /debug commands.)
" \\orbfile01\testserver\Timberline Office\9.5\Accounting\WinInst\setup.exe" /silent /debuglog"C:\Documents\prereq.log"