How to install Active-HDL in unattended(silent) mode

Background

An unattended installation does not require user interaction. A silent installation does not display the progress of the installation. The purpose to performing this type of installation is for multiple-users within the same company, university, etc. The manager will perform the main installation on his or her machine, and will then silently install on the rest of the machines to ensure uniform settings.

There are two steps for performing an unattended installation:

1. On one machine, install Active-HDL manually to select the desired options in order to obtain the response file with the .iss extension.

2. On another machine, silently install Active-HDL using the .iss file.

Unattended Installation for 9.1

1. On the host machine, go to our Downloads page, and download the main installation of Active-HDL 9.1.

   NOTE: Version 9.1 will be located under Archived Builds and Libraries.

2. Copy the Active-HDL9.1_main_installation.exe to a relevant folder within your harddrive or network (e.g. C:/AHDL91).

3. Open a command prompt window.

4. Change the directory to the location of your installation.exe file.

5. Execute the following command:

   Active-HDL9.1_main_installation.exe -s -a -r /f1"full_path_to_filename.iss"
   

   NOTES:

   • The -s switch is used to silently extract the archive

   • The -a switch is used to allow adding switches to the command line of the underlying setup.exe process.

   • The -r switch is what creates the response (.iss) file

   • The /f1"full_path_to_filename.iss" specifies the path and the name of the .iss file that the user chooses. If this is not included within the command, the default setup.iss file is saved in the C:\WINDOWS directory.

6. Manually install Active-HDL with all of your desired options.

7. After installation, you should see your created .iss file within the specified directory.

   NOTE: The .iss file can also be saved to a network to make installation from another machine easier

To silently install Active-HDL on another machine:

1. Open the command prompt.

2. Change the directory to the location of the Active-HDL9.1_main_installation.exe file

3. Execute the following command:

   Active-HDL9.1_main_installation.exe -s -a -s /f1"full_path_to_filename.iss"
   

4. Active-HDL will be silently installed.

Unattended Installation for 9.2 and 9.3

The installation for 9.2 and 9.3 is slightly different than for earlier versions such as 9.1.

1. Go to our Downloads page, and download the main installation of Active-HDL 9.3.

2. Copy the Active-HDL9.3_main_setup.exe to a relevant folder within your harddrive or network (e.g. C:/AHDL93).

3. Open a command prompt window.

4. Change the directory to the location of your installation.exe file.

5. Execute the following command:

   Active-HDL9.3_main_setup.exe -r /f1"full_path_to_filename.iss"
   

6. Manually install Active-HDL with all of your desired options.

7. After installation, you should see your created .iss file within the specified directory.

To silently install Active-HDL on another machine:

1. Open the command prompt.

2. Change the directory to the location of the Active-HDL9.3_main_setup.exe file

3. Execute the following command:

   Active-HDL9.3_main_setup.exe -s /f1"full_path_to_filename.iss"
   

4. Active-HDL will be silently installed.

   NOTE: The .iss response file is different for WEB installations than for DVD installations. The DVD installation includes vendor libraries and WEB does not.