What Does Silent Install Mean in Windows? [2024]

When a user chooses to install software, it’s rarely the case that they’ll spend minutes, even hours on end going through the end-user license (EULA) legalese. Most people who’ve used a computer for any stretch of time might have clicked on thousands of “I accept,” and “Next” buttons, often without giving it a second thought.

EULAs and software installation have become meaningless hurdles for people who want to use a particular software. This is where the concept of “silent installation” comes into play. This article will discuss the idea behind this procedure, the potential downsides, and safety concerns. It’ll also guide you through the method of installing any software without user interaction, on Windows.

What Is Silent or Unattended Installation?

Silent, or unattended installation is the idea of installing a program without any user interaction. The program installs without showing any sort of dialog, or pop-up boxes, or requiring any user input. This procedure is mainly used during mass installations, or automated software deployment; most of which happens in industries, and large-scale operations.

Since the installation doesn’t require user input, it uses a set of pre-defined answers or rules when installing the software. This means that even if you want, you wouldn’t be able to change any options like the destination folder or select any special configuration to run. In most cases, silent installation happens within large-scale environments, with systems requiring frequent, critical updates, so the idea of no human intervention means that the deployment can be consistent and reliable (just like CrowdStrike).

To understand why this is necessary, it’s important to know that some updates or software installations need to be repeated across large numbers of systems—often hundreds or thousands—especially with enterprise software. Silent installation automates this process, so users don’t have to deal with the repetitive task of manually clicking through installation options, sometimes on a daily basis.

↪ How Does it Work?

To install software silently, it must be programmed to know which options to select, decline, and install. It should be aware of the selections and values required by the installation utility during the installation process. All of this information is stored in a dedicated file known as the “response file.”

The response file contains all the data and values that would usually have to be manually entered by the user, such as the directory, or shortcut folder, during the execution of an installer. It can contain variables to select, skip or deselect certain product features, and can either be created manually or automatically by capturing user responses. In a nutshell, you use response files to provide input to the installer during an installation procedure.

Silent installation works by using response files to run program setups in the background, without displaying any messages or pop-ups. The settings fed to the installer via response files are what automates the whole process. In cases where frequent updates need to be installed, the response file is created by recording the first-time installation and capturing the user-fed values.

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Should You Use a Silent Windows Install?

While silent installations are mainly synonymous with enterprise software and large-scale operations, they can be used individually on any PC. However, before jumping into Command Prompt or Windows Terminal and running a script for a silent installation, you’ll need to weigh both sides of the balance.

For large-scale companies, with hundreds of thousands of systems, it is not ideal to have users install software themselves. For one, they might lack technical knowledge, or administrative privileges required to carry out the procedure. In addition, the task may be outside the domain of their work, and sometimes, would require the understanding of deep technicalities. Plus, it isn’t ideal to have to plug in USB sticks into thousands of PCs to install something.

On an individual level, installing a software silently will save you the hassle of going through boring documentation, and switching through installer pop-ups. In the long run, it will save you a lot of time, especially with apps that come with a lot of frequent updates. However, like is mentioned above, silently installing a software works best in large-scale deployments, and is useful for configuring a huge number of systems equally.

The dark side of silently installing software however is that you, as a user, don’t really have a lot of control in some scenarios, where installs are managed by your MSPs or software providers, directly. In such cases, it is important to look at the potential risks at play, and if on the receiving end, try and make sure the procedure is as transparent as possible.

↪ Is it Safe?

The safety of silently installing software lies in the whole idea of unattended installation. While manual intervention does provide a layer of surety while setting up a program, it still doesn’t guarantee safety. The setup alone doesn’t ensure that the software doesn’t come embedded with malicious code. Since most users rarely ever go through the setup process thoughtfully, it is easy to overlook the potential hazards.

Installing software silently can sometimes be unsafe, especially if it is being used outside of sourcing large-scale deployments since the developer could easily push an update that takes advantage of any vulnerability in your system to steal sensitive information. It could potentially be risky, too.

Take the CrowdStrike outage in the summer of 2024, for example. At a very basic level, a silent update is what led to systems being compromised. The damage was so deep that Fortune 500 companies alone, reported losses of over $5.4 billion.

In this situation, however, silent installation isn’t directly to blame; the outage affected over 8.5 million computers, and manually installing updates on each one of them would’ve been even more tedious, complicated, and risky.

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How to Run a Silent Install on Windows?

While large systems require endpoint management tools to push updates silently, this section will delve into how an individual system can install updates unattended for any application. On Windows, you’ll generally find two types of installer file formats: MSI (Microsoft Software Installer) and EXE. The steps to take for installing each of these files will differ slightly.

↪ Microsoft Service Installer (MSI)

The MSI installer package is Windows’ standard format for installing, updating, configuring, or uninstalling packages. It uses Windows Installer Service. To silently install an MSI file, use the msiexec.exe command with the /quiet or /qn switch. These switches accept and install the application using standard installation parameters.

If you want to look at more options, refer to the msiexec documentation which can be accessed by typing “msiexec” in the Start menu’s Run dialog.

To install an app silently, you can choose what options to apply before starting the install procedure, but as an example, here is a Command Prompt instruction to install an app with no graphical pop-ups, no reboot after installation, and creating a log of the whole process:

msiexec /i c:\path\to\package.msi /quiet /qn /norestart /log c:\path\to\install.log

↪ Executable Installer (EXE)

For an EXE file, the procedure is simple, really. To check out all available options for installing this file format, simply open Command Prompt, navigate to the file’s location, and type [filename].exe /help. This will display a list of available command-line switches for customizing the installation process.

If nothing pops up, and the installer is launched, the vendor may’ve not included options to install the file silently. For EXEs, the instructions to initiate an unattended installation differs from program to program, which, again, can be accessed via the /help command.

The issue with EXE files is that they aren’t standardized; any silent switches supported by the file are dependent upon the packaging technology, such as Advanced Installer or InstallShield. For this reason, you’ll have to either look at the setup itself to determine the installer, or simply throw random switches to see what works (refer to the image above).

What to Do if a Silent Install Doesn’t Complete?

At times, it is possible that a silent install isn’t complete. This can be due to a multitude of possibilities. Perhaps, your network lost connection, slowed down, or the installation utility conflicted with an already-running process. It can also be possible that your syntax for installation was wrong in the first place.

If a silent install doesn’t complete, try the following steps to isolate and subsequently resolve the issue:

1. Check and verify that your internet connection is working properly.
2. Verify that the syntax within CMD aligns with how you intended to install the program. Refer to the help dialog in case of any issues.
3. Look for any conflicting apps, or simultaneous installations happening when the silent install is initiated.

If nothing else works, check the installation log files. Remember, these files have to be manually created via the /log command, as instructed above. These can often contain specific reasons or error messages corresponding to the reason for the installation failing.

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Conclusion

The concept of silently installing software isn’t new. In fact, this idea is widely used in numerous settings, ranging from automated Windows updates to network management tasks. Many processes happen ‘silently’ in the background without users having to intervene, which is why it has almost become a need for system maintenance and large-scale software deployment.