I have an install.bat file with scripts to install a Windows application silently. Now the .exe file for the application has integrated .exe for installation of SQL Server along with the application.

When I run the .bat file, it only installs the application silently, but the SQL Server installation still needs manual intervention to install, it's not happening silently.

This is my .bat file for silent install:

@echo off
echo Starting silent installation...

:: Define installer path
set INSTALLER_PATH="<path>\Setup.exe"

:: Run the installer silently (modify the silent switch if needed)
%INSTALLER_PATH% /s /v /ACTION=INSTALL /UIMODE=Normal /norestart /log install_log.txt

:: Check if installation was successful
if %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 (
    echo Installation failed! Check install_log.txt for details.
    exit /b 1
) else (
    echo Installation completed successfully.
)

:: Exit script
exit /b 0

I have an install.bat file with scripts to install a Windows application silently. Now the .exe file for the application has integrated .exe for installation of SQL Server along with the application.

When I run the .bat file, it only installs the application silently, but the SQL Server installation still needs manual intervention to install, it's not happening silently.

This is my .bat file for silent install:

@echo off
echo Starting silent installation...

:: Define installer path
set INSTALLER_PATH="<path>\Setup.exe"

:: Run the installer silently (modify the silent switch if needed)
%INSTALLER_PATH% /s /v /ACTION=INSTALL /UIMODE=Normal /norestart /log install_log.txt

:: Check if installation was successful
if %ERRORLEVEL% NEQ 0 (
    echo Installation failed! Check install_log.txt for details.
    exit /b 1
) else (
    echo Installation completed successfully.
)

:: Exit script
exit /b 0

• sql-server
• batch-file
• automation
• silent-installer

• 1 I guess your app exe isn't calling the SQL server silently – Dale K Commented yesterday
• 1 What edition and version of SQL Server are you trying to install? What does the /s switch do? – AlwaysLearning Commented yesterday
• What does install_log.txt say? What exactly happens that you want us to assist you with? Please be aware that we're here to assist you to fix a problem with your code, and other than non-critical syntax errors on lines 4, 5, 9, 10, 12, 13, and 20 your script content looks okay. If the script doesn't run at all, the problem is unrelated to its content, and would no longer be suitable as an on topic question for this particular platform. – Compo Commented yesterday
• Additionally, if the setup.exe file is installing your application, but one or more of the installation components is not installing as you wanted, then your question is completely unrelated to a programming issue. That would be something you'd have to investigate yourself with the installer and/or its developer. Those things would not be on topic for this particular platform. – Compo Commented yesterday
• This batch doesn't perform a silent installation at all. There's no /s option according to the command prompt installation docs. The quiet option is /q or /qs. UIMODE is incompatible with /q – Panagiotis Kanavos Commented yesterday

1 Answer 1

This isn't a silent install at all. This explicitly requests full dialogs with /UIMODE=Normal. From the command prompt installation docs :

• /UIMODE=Normal is the default for non-Express editions and presents all setup dialog boxes for the selected features.

The UIMODE setting can't be used with the /Q or /QS parameters.

There are no /s or /v options at all in the docs.

To perform a quiet installation you have to specify several important settings anyway, including the product key, the service accounts to use, what services to install etc. The example at the top of the documentation shows how to perform a quite installation with the desired accounts :

The following example installs the SQL Server Database Engine, SQL Server Analysis Services, SQL Server and Integration Services in quiet mode:

C:\SQLMedia\SQLServer2022> setup.exe /Q /IACCEPTSQLSERVERLICENSETERMS /ACTION="install"
/PID="AAAAA-BBBBB-CCCCC-DDDDD-EEEEE" /FEATURES=SQL,AS,IS
/INSTANCENAME=MSSQLSERVER /SQLSVCACCOUNT="MyDomain\MyAccount"
/SQLSVCPASSWORD="************" /SQLSYSADMINACCOUNTS="MyDomain\MyAccount "
/AGTSVCACCOUNT="MyDomain\MyAccount" /AGTSVCPASSWORD="************"
/ASSVCACCOUNT="MyDomain\MyAccount" /ASSVCPASSWORD="************"
/ISSVCACCOUNT="MyDomain\MyAccount" /ISSVCPASSWORD="************"
/ASSYSADMINACCOUNTS="MyDomain\MyAccount"

If specifying all that in a single batch is too much, you can use a configuration file with these settings and call it with :

Setup.exe /Q /ConfigurationFile=MyConfigurationFile.ini

You can even generate the config file from the setup wizard. As the docs explain, the last page before installation starts shows the path to a config file containing the options specified in the wizard.