I am trying to find a good way to deploy Lync 2013 standard & basic clients silently on computers with Windows 7 / Office 2010 & ahve a few roadblocks.
1) I am successful installing the standard client (downloaded from VL), but when installing it automatically I am getting the error "The language of this installation package is not supported by your system". I am using the syntax:
setup.exe /adminfile lyncstd.msp /config lync.ww\config.xml
I made the MSP using setup /admin and gave it a full install. I also made the config.mxl file with the following syntax:
<Configuration Product="Lync">
<Display Level="none" CompletionNotice="yes" SuppressModal="yes" AcceptEula="yes" />
<Logging Type="verbose" Path="%temp%" Template="Microsoft Office Lync Setup(*).txt" />
<USERNAME Value="Me" />
<COMPANYNAME Value="My company" />
<INSTALLLOCATION Value="%programfiles%\Microsoft Office" />
<DistributionPoint Location="\\vm-fs\public\Lync\Standard" />
<OptionState Id="LOBiMain" State="absent" Children="force" /> -->
<Setting Id="SETUP_REBOOT" Value="IfNeeded" />
So this makes no sense to me – as in why installing from the GUI would present no such problem, but automating suddenly throws up a burning hemorrhoid. In the install log, I see towards the end a message: The language of this installation package is not supported by your system", so I have tried disabling options for language support in the admin install mode as well as to Remove the following earlier version of "Microsoft Office Multi-language User Interface Pack".
2) Or is the only way to install it using a GPO running a batch file in Computer Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Scripts, and have it run a silent install using setup.exe with the adminfile & configfile tags?
Thanks!
Best Answer
In order to get around the issues with deployment using an MSP file, You can use a startup script to call the exe directly and utilize the xml config for additional parameters/ logging.
To start, create a share folder and put the Lync 2013 files in it. Make sure you give "domain computers" rights to read and write to this folder (write if you want logging) and give it both NTFS and Share permissions.
If you want logging (and you do), create a folder for the logs in the Install folder. I named mine
InstallLogFiles
(yup, very creative).In the installation folder, there is the
lync.www
folder with theconfig.xml
file. Edit the file and include the following:You can change the other values as needed, but the lines with the \SERVER\SHARE\ should point to your installation folder.
Next, you will need a startup script to run on the workstations to call the installation. The following code and be edited as needed and saved as a .bat file. The file should then be added to a Group Policy as a startup script. To make deployment easier, you can scope the policy to only be readable by an AD group. You can then add the computers who should get the install to the AD group.
Code:
The code above will check to see if the machine is XP, if it is exit/log.
Checks to see if Office 2013 is already installed, if so exit/log.
Checks to see if Lync 2013 Standalone is already install, if so exit.
If it's not, it kicks off the install and logs it's steps. The actual Software installation log will also exist and both are set to use the
%computername%
variable to help trace issues.I have deployed Lync to hundreds of machines this way, without issue.