setting up PV*Sol for distibution through Microsoft Intune.

[Admincs]

Hi,

I may be in the wrong place here but after searching this site and the internet, I cannot find the settings that I need to add PV*Sol to my company's Intune portal.

Is the documentation somewhere of the commands for installing, uninstalling and any special switches that can be used for unattended installation to a Windows 10 Pro device?

Thanks in advance,

Charles

[developer_mh]

Dear Charles,

so far we haven't tested to deploy PV*SOL with Microsoft Intune, so we can't give you any details here. If you need cli commands for silently un/installing of PV*SOL, you can use the following switches:

/VERYSILENT /SUPPRESSMSGBOXES

Hope that helps. We would be very interested in your feedback!

Kind regards,

Martin

[Admincs]

Hi Martin,

I have discovered that during the installation, PV*Sol downloads a second program, Photo-Plan. The switches that I enter for the installation of PV*Sol are not passed on to this second installation. Is it possible to download Photo-Plan manually and install it in a separate call? I haven't found anything on your website referring to Photo-Plan. 

Regards,

Charles

[developer_mh]

Hi Charles,

sorry for the late answer. You can prevent the installation of Photo Plan if you add

/MINIMAL

to the command line. The setup file of Photo Plan can be downloaded here:

https://downloads.valentin.de/photoplan/setupPhotoPlan.exe

You can run the installation without user interaction with the command

setupPhotoPlan.exe /passive 

 

Here a the full options for the msiexec installer, for reference:

Quote

Windows ® Installer. V 5.0.19041.1

msiexec /Option <Required Parameter> [Optional Parameter]

Install Options
 </package | /i> <Product.msi>
 Installs or configures a product
 /a <Product.msi>
 Administrative install - Installs a product on the network
 /j<u|m> <Product.msi> [/t <Transform List>] [/g <Language ID>]
 Advertises a product - m to all users, u to current user
 </uninstall | /x> <Product.msi | ProductCode>
 Uninstalls the product
Display Options
 /quiet
 Quiet mode, no user interaction
 /passive
 Unattended mode - progress bar only
 /q[n|b|r|f]
 Sets user interface level
 n - No UI
 b - Basic UI
 r - Reduced UI
 f - Full UI (default)
 /help
 Help information
Restart Options
 /norestart
 Do not restart after the installation is complete
 /promptrestart
 Prompts the user for restart if necessary
 /forcerestart
 Always restart the computer after installation
Logging Options
 /l[i|w|e|a|r|u|c|m|o|p|v|x|+|!|*] <LogFile>
 i - Status messages
 w - Nonfatal warnings
 e - All error messages
 a - Start-up of actions
 r - Action-specific records
 u - User requests
 c - Initial UI parameters
 m - Out-of-memory or fatal exit information
 o - Out-of-disk-space messages
 p - Terminal properties
 v - Verbose output
 x - Extra debugging information
 + - Append to existing log file
 ! - Flush each line to the log
 * - Log all information, except for v and x options
 /log <LogFile>
 Equivalent of /l* <LogFile>
Update Options
 /update <Update1.msp>[;Update2.msp]
 Applies update(s)
 /uninstall <PatchCodeGuid>[;Update2.msp] /package <Product.msi | ProductCode>
 Remove update(s) for a product
Repair Options
 /f[p|e|c|m|s|o|d|a|u|v] <Product.msi | ProductCode>
 Repairs a product
 p - only if file is missing
 o - if file is missing or an older version is installed (default)
 e - if file is missing or an equal or older version is installed
 d - if file is missing or a different version is installed
 c - if file is missing or checksum does not match the calculated value
 a - forces all files to be reinstalled
 u - all required user-specific registry entries (default)
 m - all required computer-specific registry entries (default)
 s - all existing shortcuts (default)
 v - runs from source and recaches local package
Setting Public Properties
 [PROPERTY=PropertyValue]

Consult the Windows ® Installer SDK for additional documentation on the
command line syntax.

Copyright © Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Portions of this software are based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group.

 

 

Hope that helps, kind regards,

Martin

[Big Parker]

Hello,

i have the same problem with photoplan, the MSI parameters don't work for me.
Also the command:

setupPhotoPlan.exe /passive 

does not work.

Is there a setupphotoplan.msi or an other method for silent install?

Regards,

Thomas

[developer_fw]

Hello Big Parker,

sorry for coming back to you this late.

Is there any output when using the installer in non passive mode?

On 9/30/2022 at 9:14 AM, Big Parker said:

Is there a setupphotoplan.msi or an other method for silent install?

We do not have such an installer, but I can contact the company who programmed PhotoPlan for further information.

Kind regards,
Frederik

[mrfrenzy]

This is how I solved it:

First make a separate package of PhotoPlan in intune, package the setupphotoplan.exe with IntuneWinAppUtil
Install command: 

setupPhotoPlan.exe /L1033 /S /v/qn

Detection file:

"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\PhotoPlan\PhotoPlan.exe"

Uninstall command:

msiexec.exe /X{8B9F017D-1926-414D-A739-034F244A8DFC} /passive /quiet

 

Then you make a new package for PV*Sol and make it depend on PhotoPlan being installed first:

Install command: (I did not try to add /MINIMAL, it seems it will just skip PhotoPlan since it is already installed)

setup_pvsolpremium_2023_1.exe /LANG=EN /SILENT

Detection file:

"%programfiles%\Valentin EnergieSoftware\PVSOL premium 2023\PVSOLpremium.exe"

Uninstall command:

"%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Valentin EnergieSoftware\PVSOL premium 2023\unins000.exe" /SILENT

[GK_SW]

Hey guys 

thanks for the previous help in this thread. 

setup_pvsolpremium_2023_1.exe /LANG=EN /SILENT

This command works for me if it is a fresh new installation. When I try to update the revision i.e. from R3 to R4 it will just corrupt some files and forces me to uninstall and reinstall it manually. I did also try the /update option but that wouldnt work aswell. In this case it just stays at revision R3. 

Did you experience this issue aswell?

 

Kind regards

Georg

[developer_fw]

Hej GK_SW

On 5/16/2023 at 1:09 PM, GK_SW said:

When I try to update the revision i.e. from R3 to R4 it will just corrupt some files

Could you elaborate which files are getting corrupted exactly?

On 5/16/2023 at 1:09 PM, GK_SW said:

Did you experience this issue aswell?

So far we could not reproduce it but are very thankful about further details!

Kind regards
Frederik

[GK_SW]

On 5/22/2023 at 1:02 PM, developer_fw said:

Hej GK_SW

Could you elaborate which files are getting corrupted exactly?

So far we could not reproduce it but are very thankful about further details!

Kind regards
Frederik

Hi developer_fw

Curiously, it works with the update from R4 to R5. Either this was version-specific or an one-off error.

Thank you for your help anyways  

[Valintune]

Hey everyone,

since there isn't much information about Intune and PV*SOL, I'd like to share some updated knowledge, for anyone in need:

To Update PV*SOL you can simply run the setup file for the newer versoin on the machine with the older version.

You can get the newest version here: Download Testversionen | Valentin Software (valentin-software.com)
(If the License Key of the User is already registered on the machine, it will automatically run the licensed version)

I've also had the issue of corrupted files, when I updated from 2024 R2 to 2024 R3. I simply fixed it by running the setup file twice on the machine.

My install.cmd file which is the setup file for Intune: (Yes, it installs twice just in case)

START /W setup_pvsolpremium_2024_3.exe /LANG=DE /VERYSILENT
ECHO Back from setup_pvsolpremium_2024_3.exe

START /W setup_pvsolpremium_2024_3.exe /LANG=DE /VERYSILENT
ECHO Back from setup_pvsolpremium_2024_3.exe

The Uninstall command:

%programfiles(x86)%\Valentin EnergieSoftware\PVSOL premium 2024\unins000.exe" /SILENT 

This only deinstalls the specific version (depends on the year) inside it's path. Therefore you might want to uninstall the older version of the previous year, after the new version was successfully deployed.

Detection Rule:

The Developers created a text file of requiered files inside %programfiles(x86)%\Valentin EnergieSoftware\PVSOL premium 2024\RequiredFilesProgramData.txt if you want to make sure the program will run after a successfull installation, you might want to include one of these.

Here are my Detection Rules:

File
Path: %programfiles(x86)%\Valentin EnergieSoftware\PVSOL premium 2024\
File or Folder: PVSOLpremium.exe 
Detection Method: File exists
Associated with a 32-bit app on 64-bit clients: YES

 

File 
Path: %programdata%\Valentin EnergieSoftware\MeteoSyn\meteonorm\8.2\
File or Folder: acsd_all4_mes_c.txt
Detection Method: File exists

 

Registry 
Path: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\PVSOL premium 2024_is1
Value Name: DisplayVersion
Detection Method: String Comparison
Operator: Equals
Value: 2024.3
Associated with a 32-bit app on 64-bit clients: YES

→ The Value of the Registry DisplayVersion changes with each update

Dependencies:

Photo Plan → automatically install

To get Photo Plan to run I had to extract the MSI out of the setupPhotoPlan.exe from this Link https://downloads.valentin.de/photoplan/setupPhotoPlan.exe .
Simply run setupPhotoPlan.exe and leave the Setup Window open. Afterwards you can find the Photo Plan.msi File in %localappdata%\Temp . Now you can package a Win32 App with the Photo Plan.msi as the setup file. Intune will fill out the remaining fields automatically.

Reminder: If you mix Win32 Apps and Line-Of-Business-Apps in your ESP, Autopilot might fail.

Have fun !

[developer_mh]

This is great, thanks a lot, Valintune! I am sure it will be helpful for a lot of other users.

One important point though: Photoplan does not need to be installed separately, it is now part of the standard PV*SOL installation (since 2024 R1). Even if you install PhotoPlan from the sources that you mentioned, a current version of PV*SOL will not use it, but will use the Photoplan executables and dlls inside

C:\Program Files (x86)\Valentin EnergieSoftware\PVSOL premium 2024\Bin\Photoplan1.2