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Unattended installation downloads the .zip file but won't run the batch file

I'm trying to run an unattended installation of Solidworks 2015 from Kace. I have tested my package locally and it installs fine. So I zipped up the contents, making sure to keep the install.bat file in the root of the zipped folder. Because the file is so large (5GB) I loaded it into the client drop and associated it with the software in Kace. I then created the distribution to install anytime, associated it with the software (which associates it with the .zip file in the software detail). When force an inventory on my test machine, the deployment starts. I see that the .zip file downloads to "C:\ProgramData\Dell\KACE\downloads\44360", and the size matches up so I'm not losing data anywhere and it doesn't seem to be corrupted. I can open the .zip file on the machine and see that everything is there. However, after downloading the Kace popup says the installation is completed, and nothing installs. In the distribution settings, I have selected "Override Default Installation" and listed the command to be "install.bat" which should just run the batch file and start the installs.


Am I missing something? Any ideas on what might be going wrong? Is there a way to find logs of attempted installations in Kace?
UPDATE: I found some logs that saying that Kace is unable to unzip the .zip file. Any ideas on why that would be?
[2016-11-10.15:08:17][KDeploy:CMIPackageMgr::PreProces] KDeploy    PreprocessPackage:Unzip FAILED (C:\ProgramData\Dell\KACE\downloads\44360\Solidworks_2015_unattended.zip) exit 2.
[2016-11-10.15:08:17][KDeploy:CMIPackageMgr::InstallSw] KDeploy    InstallSwitch (MI): package download failure, or missing 'full command' if MI is a .zip file
UPDATE 2: I used 7zip to compress the files this time, and now they seemed to have unzipped. However, only some of the files were unzipped. I also changed the name of the zip file to SW2015.zip so it was shorter. I think I'm running into an issue where the name of certain files is exceeding the 259 max for Windows API.
Asked 7 years ago 4120 views
5 Comments   [ + ] Show comments
  • I have had times where I needed to put the full path into my batch file.
    C:\ProgramData\Dell\KACE\downloads\44360\install.bat

    May be worth a shot to try that - rockhead44 7 years ago
    • Just tried that - no dice. - pbrandvold 7 years ago
  • it could because it is installing as system vs a user and needs to use the temp area of a real user to stage the install in. I have a kscript to do this and I have to run it as current logged in user vs system to get to work - SMal.tmcc 7 years ago
  • Update: When I explicitly name the file path for each .exe or .msi with the full name (C:\ProgramData\Dell\KACE\downloads\44360\Solidworks_2015_unattended.zip\.....) it still didn't work. - pbrandvold 7 years ago
  • In your MI configuration make sure that you check the "Don't Prepend msiexec.exe" option. As for the unzip operation failing, what software did you use to create it? I always use the function included in Windows (right click, Send To, compressed file). There are some third party programs that cause problems for KACE with zip files. - chucksteel 7 years ago
    • I have that "Don't prepend msiexec.exe" checked, and I used the native Windows function to zip the files. It's strange. I have a ticket open with Kace - I'll report back what we find out. - pbrandvold 7 years ago
  • Did you zip with ultra compression? If so, tray again using normal compression. - flip1001 7 years ago
    • I used normal compression. - pbrandvold 7 years ago

Answers (1)

Answer Summary:
Posted by: pbrandvold 7 years ago
Orange Belt
2

Top Answer

For anyone else in the future having this problem, I tracked down the problem.

In troubleshooting with Kace support, I found where the file gets downloaded and extracted during the deployment process (C:\ProgramData\Dell\Kace\downloads). I was then able to watch the .zip file get downloaded. There was no loss of data, as the size was the same. However, it only unzipped part of the files. I finally realized that Kace was unable to unzip the files because of the Windows file name limit.

I was able to reconfigure how my folders were nested and change names enough to make it work. My longest file name was 249 characters before I made changes. While this isn't the upper limit, I'm assuming it's the problem (I'm not sure if in the extraction process of .zip files adds to file names temporarily or something like that). After I shortened everything and nested the folders differently, the .zip file was extracted as normal and the new install.bat file ran. The program has been deployed successfully.

 
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