Windows Installer (MSIEXEC)

• Documented command line arguments
• Undocumented command line arguments ⁽¹⁾
• More to explore

Documented command line arguments

Type MSIEXEC /? and you'll get the following on-screen help:

	Windows ® Installer. V 5.0.7601.17514
	
	msiexec /Option <Required Parameter> [Optional Parameter]
	
	Install Options
		</package | /i> <Product.msi>
			Installs or configures a product
		/a <Product.msi>
			Administrative install - Installs a product on the network
		/j<u|m> <Product.msi> [/t <Transform List>] [/g <Language ID>]
			Advertises a product - m to all users, u to current user
		</uninstall | /x> <Product.msi | ProductCode>
			Uninstalls the product
	
	Display Options
		/quiet
			Quiet mode, no user interaction
		/passive
			Unattended mode - progress bar only
		/q[n|b|r|f]
			Sets user interface level
			n - No UI
			b - Basic UI
			r - Reduced UI
			f - Full UI (default)
		/help
			Help information
	
	Restart Options
		/norestart
			Do not restart after the installation is complete
		/promptrestart
			Prompts the user for restart if necessary
		/forcerestart
			Always restart the computer after installation
	
	Logging Options
		/l[i|w|e|a|r|u|c|m|o|p|v|x|+|!|*] <LogFile>
			i - Status messages
			w - Nonfatal warnings
			e - All error messages
			a - Start up of actions
			r - Action-specific records
			u - User requests
			c - Initial UI parameters
			m - Out-of-memory or fatal exit information
			o - Out-of-disk-space messages
			p - Terminal properties
			v - Verbose output
			x - Extra debugging information
			+ - Append to existing log file
			! - Flush each line to the log
			* - Log all information, except for v and x options
		/log <LogFile>
			Equivalent of /l* <LogFile>
	
	Update Options
		/update <Update1.msp>[;Update2.msp]
			Applies update(s)
		/uninstall <PatchCodeGuid>[;Update2.msp] /package <Product.msi | ProductCode>
			Remove update(s) for a product
	
	Repair Options
		/f[p|e|c|m|s|o|d|a|u|v] <Product.msi | ProductCode>
			Repairs a product
			p - only if file is missing
			o - if file is missing or an older version is installed (default)
			e - if file is missing or an equal or older version is installed
			d - if file is missing or a different version is installed
			c - if file is missing or checksum does not match the calculated value
			a - forces all files to be reinstalled
			u - all required user-specific registry entries (default)
			m - all required computer-specific registry entries (default)
			s - all existing shortcuts (default)
			v - runs from source and recaches local package
	
	Setting Public Properties
		[PROPERTY=PropertyValue]
	
	Consult the Windows ® Installer SDK for additional documentation on the
	command line syntax.
	
	Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
	Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.

Undocumented ⁽¹⁾ command line arguments

My colleague Adriaan Westra taught me the trick to suppress reboots when installing .MSI files from the command line (better believe me, /norestart rarely does what its name suggests):

MSIEXEC /i myfile.msi /qn REBOOT=ReallySuppress

This made me curious if there are more unknown arguments, so I started experimenting.
Try for yourself, type:

STRINGS MSIEXEC.EXE | FINDSTR /R /C:"[A-Z][A-Z]\="

and you'll find the following "undocumented" command line arguments (called "Public Properties" in MSIEXEC's on-screen help) and their default values:

REMOVE=ALL
ACTION=ADMIN
REINSTALL=ALL
REBOOTPROMPT=""
REBOOT=Force
REBOOT=ReallySuppress
MSIPATCHREMOVE=
PATCH=

More to explore

• Microsoft's MSIEXEC page.
• Microsoft's Standard Installer Command-Line Options page.
• ORCA is Microsoft's .MSI and .MST editor; it comes as part of the Windows Server 2003 SP1 Platform SDK.
• The Windows SDK comes with many Windows Installer tools, like MsiInfo.exe.
  MSIInfo.bat finds and runs the latest version of MsiInfo.exe installed on the local computer.
• How to Enable Windows Installer Logging in Windows XP.
  This will create a MSI*.log file in the %TEMP% directory for each MSI install/uninstall.
  Useful when debugging MSI installs where the MSI is embedded in an EXE.
  For Windows 7 use Method 3 of Microsoft's Knowledge base article KB958041.
• Install MSI with log from shell context menu.
  This will create a log file with the name of the MSI package in the directory where that MSI package is located. Repeated (un)installs of the same MSI package will overwrite previous log files.
• Use Veritas WinINSTALL LE for simple modifications to .MSI files; you can find it in the "\VALUEADD\3RDPARTY\MGMT\WINSTLE" directory of any Windows 2000 CD-ROM.
• Search the registry for uninstall commands with my GetUnins.vbs or GetUnins.bat.
• Unattended/silent installation switches for Windows apps at sourceforge.net tells us "all" about command line switches for unattended installs; if you're serious about unattended installations, you should definitely read this page.