Mass deployment of the Airtame app on Windows

Download the Airtame MSI

Intro

In some environments with dozens to hundreds of employees, it becomes mandatory to ease the software deployment processes. To get the best experience out of Airtame during meetings or classes, it’s preferred that computers already have the Airtame application installed on them.

The Airtame MSI has been created to silently pre-install the Airtame app on multiple organizations’ computers. In this article, we’ll explore the different ways and tools an IT admin can use to easily deploy the Airtame Application to the whole organization.

Considerations

There are several deployment systems on the market. From Windows CMD/PowerShell to more complex deployment systems. The architecture behind all of them is designed to run the deployment software in a central server with access to the rest of the computers on the network.

Each system may use different methods of connection and running the installation on the target machine. The basic command looks like this:

msiexec /i "PATH TO MSI FILE" /quiet WRAPPED_ARGUMENTS="CONFIGURABLE OPTIONS"

The installation requires administrator credentials, make sure to run the command with such privileges.

Important note:

An Airtame application that was installed via MSI will not auto-update itself. Updates need to be pushed via the deployment system. To get notified when updates are released, please sign up for product updates.

Wrapped Arguments (Configurable options)

The Airtame MSI supports two configurable options which affect the behavior of the Airtame app. The desktop icon depends on the deployment software being used, said option does not come as a wrapped argument.

Configurable options:

• Autostart: If enabled, the Airtame application will automatically start when the computer is booted up. The default value is false.

• Legacy streamer: If enabled, will utilize legacy Airtame streaming protocol. Can be used in case of performance issues using default protocol configuration. The default value is false.

• Streaming Notification Window: If enabled, whenever a streaming session has started, the following small widget appears on the screen as a reminder of the ongoing stream. The default value is true.

The syntax of the WRAPPED_ARGUMENTS sections changes depending on the software used. We tested both Windows’ CMD and PowerShell, and the differences are as follows:

For CMD:

msiexec /i "airtame-application-3.4.0-setup.msi" WRAPPED_ARGUMENTS="/autostart=false /streaming_notification=true /legacy_streamer=false"

For PowerShell:

msiexec /i "airtame-application-3.4.0-setup.msi" WRAPPED_ARGUMENTS='"/autostart=false /streaming_notification=true /legacy_streamer=false"'

Important note:

Notice the single quotation marks employed in the PowerShell syntax surrounding the configurable options. Single quotation marks and double quotation marks are treated differently by PowerShell.

Airtame app v3.4.0 is used as an example. The version number should be used corresponding to the MSI installer you have.

Steps to deploy

PDQ Deploy

1. Click on “New Package”.

2. Name the package, the example is “Airtame App”.

3. Click on “Step”.

4. Select the MSI file to be used.

5. Write the Wrapped Arguments parameters.

6. The package is ready for deployment.

Once installed, you can use the following command to reset these two default MSI settings (autostart=false/streaming_notifications=true) in case the app had already been installed on some computers or if, in the future, you  want to override the changes that the user has made to these two commands:

<app install location>\Airtame.exe --reset-default=true

Troubleshooting

1. Check the syntax of the WRAPPED_ARGUMENTS section e.g. single vs. double quotation marks. Please reference the examples for CMD and PowerShell above.

2. Check the deployment software’s own log files.

3. Analyze target Windows PC Eventlog. If the MSI installation command reached the destination you’ll see a MsiInstaller Eventlog entry, analyze it for error/success codes:

Have you ordered more than 10 Airtames for your office?  Check The time-saving tips for deploying multiple devices.