Software Deployment

Also we don't have any SMS and domain, needs machine a standalone workgroup pcs

plus i do recognise scripting, and at this stage this is my only solution

vbscript and msi studio

Have any of you guys seen Rexx

You should edit your original post instead of posting 4 times.

You could use something like PSExec.

Rexx is junk.

What is the best application for packaging multiple MSI filesYou could use any tool which bundles up command lines into an EXE. Or stick with your batch file. Or use something like BAT2EXE to convert it to an EXE.

Installshield and Wise are about packaging .NET projects Completely wrong. Both will package vanilla Win32 apps just as well as .Net. Additionally, both also have scripting facilities which can take multiple command lines and build an EXE.

VBScab, do you have any ideas for deploying in that enviro? Workgroup, so no login script or AD. PSexec was the only thing I could think of, but perhaps you have a better idea for him.

Sorry, folks: a network-wide "let's reboot EVERYTHING" went out at my client's site on Friday, meaning that all my forum bookmarks got screwed...all posts show as having been read....

Anyway, if this were me, I'd definitely build a script with as much abstraction as possible. That is, as little hard-coding of paths as possible, everything in variables and so on, so that one could drop a folder (or selection of folders) on to it, it would grab a list of MSIs (and associated MSTs) and install them, probably using the Windows Installer Automation interface rather than command line calls to MSIexec.exe. There are probably many drag-and-drop capable scripts around which could easily be adapted to suit.

ozcraig, a friend of mine coded a solution similar to what VBScab has suggested for a large company (so it's well tested and quite robust). If you're interested in paying for a solution, let me know and I'll see if he's willing to part with it.