Yesterday Microsoft released Service Pack 1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. SP1 does not present any major challenges in deployment. However, here’s a short guide to how-to deploy it using silent install switches:
Downloading SP1 stand alone installer will give you an ISO-file containing three relevant EXE-files with different versions of the installer: x86, x64 and ia64.
Just extract the versions you need to a location of your choice.
Possible silent switches for deploying SP1 stand alone installer according to Microsoft are listed in the table below. However, the most common command line output would probably be something like this:
windows6.1-KB976932-X64.exe /quiet /nodialog /norestart
or
windows6.1-KB976932-X64.exe /quiet /nodialog /forcerestart
| Options | Description |
| /forcerestart | If a restart is required, this option forces any open applications or documents to close. |
| /nodialog | Suppresses the success or failure dialog box at the end of the installation. |
| /norestart | Does not restart the computer after the installation is complete, even if a restart is required to complete the installation. You should use this option in conjunction with the /quiet option. |
| /promptrestart | If a restart is required, a dialog box notifies the user that a restart is required to complete Setup. You should use this option in conjunction with the /quiet option. |
| /quiet | Runs the installation in quiet mode. This mode shows no user interface during the installation of the updates. This is the same as unattended mode, except that the user interface is hidden. No prompts will appear during the installation process except the success or failure dialog box at the end of the installation. To suppress this dialog box, you must also specify the /nodialog option. |
| /unattend | Installs the service pack in unattended mode. Only critical error prompts and a progress bar will appear during the installation. For example, Microsoft Software License Terms is not shown, and the computer will be automatically restarted. |
| /warnrestart[:<seconds>] | If a restart is required, a dialog box notifies the user that the computer will restart in the specified number of seconds. The user can either cancel the restart or restart the computer immediately. The default setting for the automatic restart is 30 seconds. |
| /wsus | Returns a failure code if the previous installation attempt failed. This option is needed only when you are deploying SP1 in a Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), SMS, or System Center Configuration Manager environment, or in any non-Microsoft product that uses the Windows Update Agent to report installation success. |
| /? or /help | Displays command usage. |
Something I really wonder… did Microsoft screw up when they choose the name of the release? The file is named windows6.1-KB976932-XXX.exe usually, the .1 would mean Service Pack 1. But what about 6.1? Version 6 of Windows was Windows Vista and version 7 was… yeah Windows 7. Which would mean that the release should have been named 7.1?
Microsoft did not screw up, according to some fellow readers(comments below).
No, MS did not slip up with the naming
Vista is NT v6.0
Win7 is NT v6.1
Reason is that when Vista was released they changed the build from 5.1 (XP) to 6.0. Which caused a lot third party packages to fail during installation since they were expecting a version 5.x of Windows. Microsoft did not want to relive this nightmare with Windows 7 so they simply named it 6.1 🙂 I asked the same question once on a seminar and an official Microsoft consultant told me this.
Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 are the marketing names for Windows NT 6.1.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Windows_NT#Releases
Hey Guys,
I just want to make it known that the above commands:
windows6.1-KB976932-X64.exe /quiet /nodialog /norestart
or
windows6.1-KB976932-X64.exe /quiet /nodialog /forcerestart
will not work. The chart listing available switches/arguments are for the SPInstall.exe.
What you first need to do is, extract windows6.1-KB976932-X64.exe or windows6.1-KB976932-x86.exe by the following command or any other type of extraction application of choice.
windows6.1-KB976932-x86.exe /X:C:\ServicePacks
(This extracts the .exe to C:\ServicePacks and you will find SPInstall.exe and the related service pack cab files.
From here you can launch spinstall.exe /quiet /nodialog /forcerestart
This is just something I found out by my own in house testing for rolling out SP1 and future service packs for patch management.
Thanks,
Alex Lawson
Delaware Micro-Computer
Hi,
I think you are wrong on this one. This is how I usually deploy SP1 for my customers. Also, read the Technet article I referred to. This should work as intended.
// DeploymentSwede
Yeah, you are right. I just ran the commands again and it worked perfectly. I think my mistake may have been caused by how I was running the .exe in a batch file.
Thanks for the list of options.. I am going to deploy about 50 servers using the silent installation.. hope everything goes well..
Is there a paramter for logging the progress to a text file?
No specific parameter, no. That’s because it always logs to\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log