Local Deployment - Silent Installation Procedure

Summary

The steps below are written to assist Presentation Solutions Clients who wish to install Create V10 silently, i.e. without user interaction.

If you wish to use a package, please contact support@presentationsolutions.co.uk and they will prepare the files you require.

ClickOnce Deployment Overview

Office add-ins built using VSTO require installation by the Office Customization Installer.

To ensure the target computer has the necessary prerequisites (see the section at the end of this paper) for installing an add-in, a bootstrapper file, usually called “setup.exe” or similar, is executed to start installation.

After installing the prerequisites, the bootstrapper will activate the Office Customization Installer. 

Details of the files to be installed and details of the certificate used for signing the installation package are contained in a VSTO deployment manifest file; the file has the extension “.vsto”. 

This installation process is facilitated by ClickOnce Deployment which is the recommended and supported method for installing Create V10.

If the target computer is known to have all the necessary prerequisites, the Office Customization Installer can be executed via a command line instruction without first executing the bootstrapper.

During installation, the user is shown details of the add-in’s certificate (see below PS_Authenticode.zip) and prompted to approve the installation via a dialogue box.

This prompt can be skipped using the silent switch in the Office Customization Installer command line. However, installation will fail at this point if the add-in’s certificate is not already installed.

Silent Installation Procedure

First please contact support@presentationsolutions.co.uk to receive a link to download PS_Authenticode.zip

To achieve a silent install, the following three steps are required:

1. Install all prerequisites as described in the Create installation manual.
2. Install the Presentation Solutions Authenticode certificate to the Trusted Publishers certificate store.
3. Create a registry entry to force the Office Customization Installer to run. The registry entry will be similar to the one below:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce]
"CreateV10"= ""{PATH_TO_INSTALLER}" /I "{PATH_TO_VSTO_FILE}" /S"

Or

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\RunOnce]
"CreateV10"= ""{PATH_TO_INSTALLER}" /I "{PATH_TO_VSTO_FILE}" /S"

In the above key, the text “{PATH_TO_INSTALLER}” represents the location of the Office Customization Installer executable. Typically this can be found here:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\microsoft shared\VSTO\10.0\VSTOInstaller.exe

“{PATH_TO_VSTO_FILE}” represents the location of the deployment manifest file. This may be a web location or a file location, for example the following formats are acceptable:

Web
https://download.presentationsolutions.co.uk/products/create/v10/655c159a-72e8-4d43-bab0-59d654662c25/test/create.vsto

File
\\FILESERVER1\Software Updates\Presentation Solutions\Create\create.vsto

After completing the above steps, Create will install silently when the user next logs on.

Silent Uninstallation

The following command line can be used to uninstall Create:

[Program Files]\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTO\10.0\VSTOInstaller.exe /Uninstall [Path to VSTO file]

For example:

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTO\10.0\VSTOInstaller.exe /Uninstall file:///X:/Create_Installation_Files/Create.vsto

You can confirm the correct command line by looking in the registry under:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall and finding the key that corresponds to Create. (This key should have “Create” as the DisplayName value and “Presentation Solutions Ltd” as the Publisher value.) The uninstall command line should be contained in the UninstallString value.

You can also add a silent switch “S” like this:

[Program Files]\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\VSTO\10.0\VSTOInstaller.exe /S /Uninstall [Path to VSTO file]