The other day I need to “mass deploy” an application to our users at the hotels. Normally, pushing applications using PDQ is straightforward, however, the installation needed some user inputs such as server name, username and install feature. Luckily, the installer was an MSI, and was able to create a transforms file to automatically answer those questions.
Found this simple application, Transforms Creator
The application is fairly simple, after installing the Transforms Creator, you would find the MSI in question, right click it and select Create Transforms. The MSI will then simulate an install, answer all the questions needed, once you’re done, an MST will be generated.
Tested it out, and it worked exactly as I needed.
I did run into some issue using TRANSFORMS in PDQ. This was merely a user issue and not knowing how to do this rather than technical. So for future reference, when creating a package in PDQ, you’ll need to the following settings in the Edit Package dialog box:
Parameters: TRANSFORMS=transforms_package.mst
and the ensure that you check “Include Entire Directory” otherwise, you’ll get an error message saying:
“This installation package could not be opened. Verify that the package exists and that you can access it, or contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer package.”
