Unattended install of ptc creo 7 with licensing server using SCCM to install

[JF_4905386]

I am trying to setup an xml driven install that I can push through SCCM to install on around 90 machines within our school District.  We are using the student edition of creo 7.  I am not really sure where to start.  Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[MartinHanak]

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@JF_4905386 wrote:

I am trying to setup an xml driven install that I can push through SCCM to install on around 90 machines within our school District.  We are using the student edition of creo 7.  I am not really sure where to start.  Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

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Hi,

1.]

You can execute silent installation. See Appendix F in https://www.ptc.com/support/-/media/support/refdocs/Creo_Parametric/7,-d-,0/installguide70.pdf?sc_lang=en document.

2.]

I think you can also run interactive sample installation on single computer and then copy installation directory to other computers.

[JF_4905386 · Accepted solution]

Thanks, this steered me in the right direction and I was able to retrieve the xml files needed to do an silent install of the applications.  I installed the software on my machine, during which I pointed it to the license server.  After doing that I went into each application folder with in the 'PTC\Creo7.0.1' folder and retrieved the 'xxx.p.xml' files for each and put them into a folder that I could reference during the install.  The command line command I used in SCCM was setup.exe -xmlall "xml" ("xml" being the folder in the root location that contained all of the files).

If anyone is looking to be able to do a smooth update between application versions, The way that I did it through SCCM was to make a Task Sequence and set conditions up to look for the specific application folder like 'Creo5' or 'Creo7.0.1'.  If it existed then it would run the 'silent_Group_Uninstall.bat' file found in the Installation Manager folder within the 'program Files\PTC\Creox.x folder'.  That will remove the old version from the machine first.  After that the Task sequence would then install the newer version onto the machine.

Thanks to everyone for your help in setting me in the right direction and giving me other ideas on how to install the software and giving me more options to do so.

[dnordin]

There are a variety of ways to create an installation. Option 1 suggested by Martin is certainly a good option as it's documented and supported by PTC. Option 2 not possible (without a custom installation) because of the Creo Services and all the prerequisite programs now needed with Creo 7.

You may wish to reconsider including the license services with the installation. That is implying you want a separate license file for each machine vs. using floating licenses from a networked server (or servers). If you setup a floating license server, you don't need to include any license services with the client installation.

You may want to consider a networked installation of the software as this gives you a single location for controlling the configuration files, startup files, etc. This is helpful when teaching as everyone has the same configuration and it's easy to change it if necessary. This requires a separate script for the installation for the Creo Services, all the prerequisite programs, the start menu items, etc. on the clients (this small script is what would be in SCCM).

Regards,

Dan N.

[rreifsnyder]

We are actually moving to Option 2 at my company. The trickiest part is the Platform Services but we have moved the "Creo" folder from an initial installation to within the "Creo 7.0.2.0" basic installation folder and there are settings that can be put into the .psf file to point the Agent and Platform to the new location. Basically that means that we aren't doing an installation at all. Of course we have other customizations that also get put into place prior to zipping up the installation folder and the last details have to do with then getting shortcuts put into the Public Desktop in Windows.

[MartinHanak]

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@rreifsnyder wrote:

We are actually moving to Option 2 at my company. The trickiest part is the Platform Services but we have moved the "Creo" folder from an initial installation to within the "Creo 7.0.2.0" basic installation folder and there are settings that can be put into the .psf file to point the Agent and Platform to the new location. Basically that means that we aren't doing an installation at all. Of course we have other customizations that also get put into place prior to zipping up the installation folder and the last details have to do with then getting shortcuts put into the Public Desktop in Windows.

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Yes, Option 2 works well for any Creo release. See my following "installation procedure":

• I have clean Windows 10 system ... clean = without standard Creo installation
• I install Creo Parametric 7.0.2.0 into C:\PTC\Creo7_020 directory
• I uninstall PTC Quality Agent (I do not want to send information to PTC)
• I pack C:\PTC\Creo7_020 directory into zip-file
• I uninstall all Creo Parametric 7.0.2.0 items ... so I have clean Windows 10 system again
• I unpack zip file ... this way I return back full C:\PTC\Creo7_020 directory
• I create startup shortcut
• I run Creo ... I do not need to set any environment variables

Note: If I copy my sample installation to another computer I will have to install Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable packages related to Creo release.

[JF_4905386]

We already have a license server setup for Creo.  With that said, I should only have to use the run a command from the install\addon folder like: "creosvcs_64.exe /quiet"  Correct??  Then the licensing should just pull down from the server.

[JF_4905386]

I need to make a correction to what I just said.  I am doing the install on my machine and pointing it to the License.dat file on our license server, but it keeps saying that it is an 'Invalid file or format'.

[dnordin]

If you're using the .xml file installation, no. The .xml installation method will install all the necessary prerequisite programs, the Creo Services, etc.

If you're going to manually install the Creo Services, prerequisites, etc., the commands would be similar to:

For the Creo Services:
<your path>\install\addon\creosvcs_64.exe /install /quiet /norestart InstallFolder="<non-standard install direcotry>"
[drop the InstallFolder if you just want to accept the default location]

For the Thumbnail viewer:
msiexec.exe /i <your path>\install\addon\Thumbviewer_32_64.msi" /qn /l*v %TEMP%\thumbviewer_install.log'

For the prerequisites (in the ptcsh0 folder):
msiexec.exe /i 2010vcredist_x64.exe /quiet /norestart
[there are 8 vcredist files to install, they will create their own log files]

and

msiexec.exe /i opencl_runtime_16.1.2_x64_setup.msi /qn /l*v %TEMP%\opencl_runtime_install.log

and

There is also an .exe installation for MS .Net 4.7.2. We don't use this as our systems are always at the latest version.

For the Creo View Express tool:
<your path>\install\addon\pvx32_64\CreoSetup.exe /f /vADDLOCAL="ALL" APPLICATIONFOLDER="<your custom path>\Creo View Express" REBOOT="ReallySuppress" /l*v "%TEMP%\CVX_Install.log" /qn
[drop the APPLICATIONFOLDER if you just want to accept the default location]

For the clients, the .psf files in <installdir>\Creo 7.0.2.0\Parametric\bin control what license server is used.
Look for the line: ENV=PTC_D_LICENSE_FILE-=<port@server>

Regards,

Dan N.

[TomU]

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@dnordin wrote:

You may want to consider a networked installation of the software as this gives you a single location for controlling the configuration files, startup files, etc. ... This requires a separate script for the installation for the Creo Services, all the prerequisite programs, the start menu items, etc. on the clients (this small script is what would be in SCCM).

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I just want to point out that you don't need to install anything on the local computer.  The Creo Services can run from the shared network location just like the rest of Creo.  You just have to add a couple of environment variables to the .psf file to tell Creo where to find them.

The only thing I choose to install on the workstations is the thumbnail viewer, and even that can happen on the fly if if the file is in the right folder on the network and a config.pro option is set, but again, even that isn't required. 

[BenLoosli]

If the 90 machines will be used within the school, I would use a single installation on a server and use a local script file to launch them. Like was mentioned, it will be easier to control the system configuration when you only have a single one to maintain. When you get an upgrade, it will be easier as you only have a single installation to upgrade and everyone gets the upgraded code immediately. I have been doing server install of Creo for over 10 years and it has saved me a lot of headaches. I came from a company that had over 250 installs on individual machines and it would take me hours  to roll out an upgrade. Getting IT to use SCCM or some other tool was a nightmare and took months before they could even schedule time to look at writing the scripts needed.

My users here have 3 config.pro files. The system wide one in the text folder. a project one in the users/home folder and the third in their start-n folder which is ptc_user/<username>. They ca add things to the on e in their start-in folder. The users/home one is overwritten by my launch script every time Creo is started. I use this for the 2 projects that have different requirements.