How do I silent install Creo 2?

Hello Robert,

You're not blind, the capabilities of PTC products are many, and the documentation can be difficult to search if you don't use the same terminology PTC does.  Remember when any of us go through training, we spend a lot of boring time in the beginning just learning the terminology and touring the features so we know where to look in the future.

What you need is in the Creo Installation guide in Appendix F, pdf page 142 (of the version I have downloaded) we read:

“An independent XML file for each installed Creo application is stored with a .p.xml extension at

<creo_loadpoint>\<app_name>\bin\pim\xml.”

If you are building a script that will install from scratch on a target machine the Installation Guide tells you to do something like this, see appendix F.

1. You install manually to the exact path where you want ALL your installs to go.
2. Capture the xml files from the location above.  Put them in a location your installation script can reference.
3. Edit your installation command shell (batch file) script commands to look like this:
   • setup.exe -xml %server%%silent_xmls%\creobase.p.xml -xml %server%%silent_xmls%\pma.p.xml
   • Where %server%, %silent_xmls% are the command shell variables defined earlier in your script or you can just hard code the path in your script, but this makes editing tedious when things change.
   • Where the command syntax is

                    setup.exe —xml <file1> —xml <file2>....

                    Performs a silent installation as per the directives in the specified XML files.  You need both the creobase and the pma file.

There is a boat load of stuff you can do in your installation script, and I'd love PTC to come around and see how much work admins have to do to really put Creo into production between the install script and start script I think I've invested a few hundred hours to make these work the way my company needs them to work.

Things you may want to consider in your silent installer script

• Check that the user is on your network and all network paths exist before beginning (use: if not exist  <path> goto <exit label in script and user message>
• How to overcome Windows 7 User Access Control (UAC) if your IT department has that locked down.
• Mapping drives to the locations where your install files are located.
• Think about how you will run in a test mode and not have users accidentally stumble across your in development script and execute it thus messing up their machine and making more work for yourself.
• If you want users to run with your own start up script, it is possible to build that customization into your installer script.  I remove the default ootb Creo shortcuts and replace them with my own start scripts and shortcuts
• You can silent install the Creo help as well: setup.exe -xml %server%%silent_xmls%\creohelp.p.xml
• You can un-install a previous install: "c:\<loadpoint>\Parametric\bin\uninstall.exe" -quiet
• Make a script wait while uninstaller does it's work before charging on to installing a new version:

:Uninstall_running

echo waiting for uninstall to complete..

timeout 10 /nobreak

tasklist /FI "IMAGENAME eq pimuninstall.exe" 2>NUL | find /I /N "pimuninstall.exe">NUL

if "%ERRORLEVEL%"=="0" goto Uninstall_running

Good references:

An A-Z Index of the Windows CMD command line | SS64.com‌

Use this site to figure out how to use the capabilities of command shell scripting.  Don't underestimate the effects of a misplaced \ or vagaries of command shell commands that claim to work one way, but don't actually work that way, and always expect that unless you're a command shell expert, it's likely the case that you're trying to use the command the wrong way.  Build smaller little test scripts for each segment.

Note also errors can be exported see: 2>&1 at Command Redirection, Pipes | Windows CMD | SS64.com

Best of luck!!

Robert,

download http://support.ptc.com/WCMS/files/138510/en/creo2_m160_install.pdf and read information in Appendix F on page 143.

Martin Hanak