SMS: How to Use Runonce.exe to Install Windows Media Player (328507)

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Windows Media Player 7.1 uses a two-part installation routine; the two parts are separated by a computer restart. Some commands are written to the RunOnce registry key to be run after the logged-on user restarts the computer. If the user who is installing Windows Media Player does not have administrator permissions on the computer, the installation does not succeed. This is true for both phases of the installation process.

The RunOnce tool handles the post-restart operations by running the pre-restart installation in an administrative user context, and by moving the RunOnce registry entries to a RunOnce registry key that is located under the SMS registry key. After the computer is restarted, the same user context runs the previously written cleanup commands to perform the post-restart cleanup and configuration operations.

Create the Package

To create an installation package for Windows Media Player, install the Feature Pack Elevated Rights Deployment tool (Runonce.exe) on the site server. Create a folder on the site server to use as a package source, and then copy the Mp71.exe file into this folder from the Microsoft Download Center. Copy the Runonce.exe file from the installation into the same folder. After you copy the files, create a package that names this folder as the package source folder.

Create the Programs

You must create two programs to handle installation and cleanup phases of the installation. The command line to perform the pre-restart phase (or deployment phase) of the installation is: You can extract the Setup_wm.exe file from the Mp71.exe file that you downloaded.

Note that the command-line switches in this example are case-sensitive. Using these switches in lowercase may cause the installation not to succeed, or may cause the client computer to stop responding (hang) when it restarts. Make sure to configure the deployment program to cause SMS to restart the computer after the program runs.

The command line for the cleanup (post-restart) phase is: You must configure the cleanup program to cause the deployment program to run first.

Create the Advertisement

Create a collection of computer to receive the Windows Media Player 7.1 software. Create a new advertisement and specify the package that you created as the package to deploy. You must advertise the cleanup program. Make this a mandatory assignment to make sure that it runs successfully. Because the cleanup phase will not run until the program on which it depends has run, the deployment is forced to run before the cleanup runs. After the deployment phase has completed and restarted the computer, the cleanup phase can run and perform the cleanup operations. This typically occurs on the next cycle of the Offer Data Provider.