Automating an Online or Offline Installer

Automate the silent installation of package or suite installers using the command line interface (CLI).

An online installer is a lightweight executable containing no packages in itself, but installs a product by downloading the necessary packages from the internet. An offline installer contains the complete set of packages needed for the product, which are bundled into a one-time download. Since offline installers contain the complete contents of software, it typically takes longer to download.

Package installers and suite installers differ only in the number of products that can be selected to install. Suite installers contain multiple products that you can choose to install, and a package installer just includes one product.

Complete the following steps to run an online or an offline installer silently.

1. Navigate to ni.com/downloads and search for the product you need to install.
2. Select the product version, edition, and driver software you need if applicable.
3. Determine whether you are downloading an online or an offline installer and complete the corresponding steps to download and run the installer you need.

   Installer Type	Steps to Download and Install
   Online Note   Installers of this type always download as an .exe and will typically be under 10MB. There are products that do not offer an online installer option.	Click Download if an online installer is available. Ensure the installer is an executable before proceeding. Run Command Prompt as an administrator and pass the following command and flags to silently automate the installation of the package. start /wait <name of installer.exe> --passive --accept-eulas --prevent-reboot
   Offline Note   Installers of this type can download as a larger .exe, .iso, or .zip file.	Download an offline installer in one of the two following ways. Click Individual Offline Installers if available. Select one of the offline installer options. Note   The higher version is a patch. Click Download. Proceed once the installer has finished downloading. Click the title of the latest version of the product you are installing. Click the download link to download your offline installer. Proceed once the installer has finished downloading. Run Command Prompt as an administrator and change to the directory in which you downloaded your installer using the cd command. For example: cd "C:\Users\lvadmin\downloads" Pass the following commands and arguments to silently automate the installation of the package. start /wait Install.exe --passive --accept-eulas --prevent-reboot

4. Pass the following command to verify that installation was successful: echo %errorlevel%.
   

   Note  

   A return code of 0 indicates that you successfully installed the package, and a return code of -125071 indicates that you have installed the package but are required to reboot your machine. For all other return codes, contact technical support.

Troubleshooting

If the steps above fail, you may be using a format of the installer that is no longer supported. An updated format of the installer is available on ni.com/downloads. Download the installer again and retry the steps above.