IT Pro Tips for Google Google Earth 4

Deployment Tips (13)

Most Common Setup Type

Not Determined

Average Package Difficulty Rating

Rated 2 / 5 (Somewhat Easy) based on 1 ratings

Most Commonly Reported Deployment Method

Windows Installer with Custom Transform (MST)

125

Note

Version 4.3

I used the info for 4.2 as a starting point.

Empty your %temp% folder. Start the setup from your downloaded exe. It should extract all the files you need into your %temp% folder.

Copy the setup folder (the one containing "Google Earth.msi") to your deployment server. After it has copied you can safely cancel the setup.

Now that you have your msi, you can create a transform with Orca.

I edited the following tables:

Properties
DESKTOPSHORTCUT - change to 0 (no desktop shortcut)

CustomAction
IS_LAUNCH_MY_PROGRAM_PLEASE - cut from table (prevent Google Earth opening after install)
InstallToolbarCA - cut from table (prevent Google Toolbar from installing)
SetGEUserStats - cut from table (unticks "allow Google to collect usage statistics")

If a user clicks reset to default settings in the Google Earth app, the user stats box will be ticked. It seems to be a per using setting.

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

rodt99
07/07/2008
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121

Note

Done with Version 4.2

To Extract Msi
Run the GoogleEarth executable you have downloaded.
Go to your Temp folder path c:\Documents and settings\username\local setting\Temp.

Contained in the above folder will be a folder name containing a guid something like {A2ECBD6C-9EBC-405B-B8E4-EB468BED99A6}.

Contained in this folder will be Google Earth.msi. Copy to an alternative place and then stop the install.

Transforms don't work well with this as Google have put googletoolbar and the auto open in a place that doesn't get transformed.

So to stop these two items you will need to delete the following custom actions.

IS_LAUNCH_MY_PROGRAM_PLEASE
InstallToolbar
InstallToolbarNow

I Deleted these in Installsheild but this should work when done from either Orca or Wise.

This will give you a working MSI that's clean doesn't install GoogleToolbar and doesn't launch the Application and the end of the install.

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

DanGay
03/04/2008
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117

Note

Installing Google Earth Pro 4 in a corporate environment using SMS using a per-machine based installation.

This solution consists of 5 main steps:

1. Do an installation of Google Earth, including the registration information. This puts down a bunch of files into C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Google\GoogleEarth. As well as a whole lotta reg keys under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Google.

2. Put these files into a safe location. Export the registry keys into a .reg file.

3. I created an msi to dump these files and the .reg file into the Program Files>Google Earth directory. I also created an Active Setup key to run a script when the user next logs in to the machine. It's located at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\GoogleEarth and
I created ComponentID, StubPath and Version. There are better places to read up on Active Setup...
The last thing I put into the msi was the vbscript referred to in the StubPath key.

4. This script which will be on the local machine and run as the user should create C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Google\GoogleEarth where you replace USERNAME with the correct user. Then there are 4 reg keys that contain this path. I created them in vbscript as follows:

Const HKEY_CURRENT_USER = &H80000001
strComputer = "."
Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")

' Create the two keys if they don't exist
strKeyPath = "Software\Google\CommonSettings"
oReg.CreateKey HKEY_CURRENT_USER,strKeyPath
strKeyPath = "Software\Google\Google Earth Pro"
oReg.CreateKey HKEY_CURRENT_USER,strKeyPath

' All keys have the same strValue
strValue = "C:\Documents and Settings\" & strUser & "\Application Data\Google\GoogleEarth"

strKeyPath = "Software\Google\CommonSettings"
strValueName = "KmlPath"
oReg.SetStringValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER,strKeyPath,strValueName,strValue

' Same strKeyPath from here on
strKeyPath = "Software\Google\Google Earth Pro"
strValueName = "DefaultKMLPath"
oReg.SetStringValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER,strKeyPath,strValueName,strValue

strValueName = "KmlPath"
oReg.SetStringValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER,strKeyPath,strValueName,strValue

strValueName = "CachePath"
oReg.SetStringValue HKEY_CURRENT_USER,strKeyPath,strValueName,strValue

Then, I copy the required user files into their profile..

Const OverWriteFiles = True
objFSO.CopyFolder "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth Pro\UserFiles", strDirectory, OverWriteFiles

And then install all the other registry keys into current user. This includes the registration information

strCommand1 = "regedit.exe /s " & Quotes & PWD & "UserFiles\google_current_user.reg" & Quotes
WScript.Echo strCommand1
return = objShell.Run (strCommand1,0,True)

5. To get all this to run through SMS, I wrote a vbscript which performs the install with .iss file
"GoogleEarthWinProSetup.exe /s /SMS /f1setup.iss /f2c:\google.log". Of course, do what you have to do to correctly point to the setup and iss files. After that I found that googleearth.exe was running, so I kill that process so that it doesn't go off and create reg keys. Lastly, I install my msi.

Clear as mud!

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

leegend
03/13/2007
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116

Note

Recorded the uninstall and then had to change the
"-remove" to (/uninst /s /f1"c:\RemoveGoogleEarth.iss")

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

gjspeng
08/14/2006
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116

Note

Doesn't Work for Google Earth 4.1

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

ckislam
06/03/2007
Show Comments ( 0 )

112

Note

Please be aware that you have to use Google Earth Professional for commercial use. Using Google Earth in a corporate environment violates the License Agreement...

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

KPrinz
07/04/2006
Show Comments ( 0 )

5

Command Line

Record Answer file:
GoogleEarthWin.exe /r /f1path\to\setup.iss

Install using Answerfile:
GoogleEarthWin.exe /s /f1path\to\setup.iss /SMS
(use /SMS if you want GoogleEarthWin.exe to remain active until setup has completed)

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

KPrinz
07/04/2006
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2

Command Line

Version 6.0.2.2074

-Choose advanced setup/uncheck "automatically update" it will give you googleearthwin.exe
-Extract that exe with 7zip
-Use GoogleEarth.exe /S /v/qn for silent install

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

anonymous_62099
05/02/2011
Show Comments ( 0 )

1

Command Line

Silent Uninstall

Record Uninstall iss:
RunDll32 C:\PROGRA~1\COMMON~1\INSTAL~1\PROFES~1\RunTime\11\50\Intel32\Ctor.dll,LaunchSetup "C:\Program Files\InstallShield Installation Information\{3DE5E7D4-7B88-403C-A3FD-2017A8240C5B}\setup.exe" -r -f1path\to\remove.iss
(careful when copy pasting, your CSID might be different, this is for German Beta)

Silent Uninstall:
GoogleEarthWin.exe -remove -s -f1path\to\remove.iss

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

KPrinz
07/04/2006
Show Comments ( 0 )

0

Note

To prevent users installing Google Earth free or plus (as they don't need admin rights to install and it violates the licence agreement if they do install), I use the following...

Set WshShell = CreateObject("wscript.shell")
Set objFSO = Wscript.CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
'create program files - google earth directory and lock down to prevent reinstall
objFSO.CreateFolder("C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth")
WshShell.run "xcacls.exe " & chr(34) & "C:\Program Files\Google\Google Earth" & chr(34) & " /r Administrators /y", 1, True

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

paulklerkx
06/25/2007
Show Comments ( 0 )

0

Command Line

Silent Uninstall

MsiExec.exe /X{1D14373E-7970-4F2F-A467-ACA4F0EA21E3} /qn

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

Micahpie
09/24/2008
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-1

Security

If you want to make an image file after a sysprep, create before a file named moduleName.txt in the %systemdrive% and give it Modify rights for everyone.

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

guib
12/11/2008
Show Comments ( 0 )

-1

Command Line

For Google Earth 4.3.7284.3916 I used the following...

Full Command Line: "msiexec.exe" /i"\\sam\autoinstall$\googleearth43\Google Earth.msi" /qn

Setup Information:

Setup Type: unspecified

Deployment Method Used: unspecified

Deployment Difficulty: unspecified

Platform(s): Windows

Istone
02/06/2009
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