I am working on a process that I can give to my analysts that will install ONLY 2014 SSMS on their laptops/workstations running Windows 7.
I created a configuration.ini file that works fine. It installs the SSMS and ADV_SSMS features with no user intervention. It does show the progress bars so we get that warm fuzzy feeling that it is working correctly.
The issue I need to overcome is, unless the setup files are local to the work station that is installing SSMS, the setup just never runs. In other words, the setup.exe over the network does not run.
Some possible workarounds to overcome this:
- Load the .ISO file on a network drive and use magicISO to mount the drive "locally". This works fine, but... I'm trying not to have to have magicISO as a prerequisite for the installation. (I know Windows Server 2012 has a new "mount" feature that eliminates the need for magicISO, and suspect Windows 10 has it too, but we are running Windows 7 for our laptops.)
- Copy the ISO contents to a local drive, and run setup.exe from the local drive. Again, I'm trying to not have to copy a ton of installation files to a local drive. It's just not pretty...
- Make a copy of the ISO files (and the configuration.ini) to a CD disk, mount the disk in the laptop, and run the setup.exe from the CD rom. I haven't tried this yet, suspect it will work fine, but passing out CD ROMS to install SSMS seems like overkill, not elegant, and is not convenient for remote offices.
So my questions to the expert are...
- Is there an alternate method to install the SSMS "feature" other than from the .ISO. A magical MSI perhaps?
- Are there any known "tricks" to overcome the issue of installing features over a network? Or is it just my environment?