How to get the MSI file from VMware-viclient-5.1.exe or any other VMware vSphere Client!

This guide works in general for any other version of VMWare Vsphere client, the installers have been packaged in pretty much the same way since I first used it in version 4.0. Why would you want to extract an MSI from the .exe even although it already supports silent installations you ask? Well, it’s true that it does, you can use the below command line string to extract from the pass commands into the internal MSI via the installshield wrapper.

vmware-viclient.exe /a /s /v" /qn TARGETDIR=C:\vSphereviclient5"

The issue I have with this is that it simply doesn’t work when being deployed via SCCM 2007. The reason for this is likely to be the contained prerequisite packages “vcredist_x64.exe” and “vcredist_x86.exe”. Most systems will already have these installed so all that’s happening here is unneeded complexity is being added to the package.

Follow the below steps if you want to grab that MSI!

1.   Right Click on the package and extract with either Winrar or 7-zip.This file is actually just a Winrar self extractor!

 

2.    You will be left with a new folder containing a “bin” and “redist” folder. We are only interested in the contents of the “bin” folder.

 

3.    Open the “Bin” folder and find “Vmware-viclient.exe” doubleclick this package to begin the installation.

 

4.   When the “welcome” screen appears don’t go any further. Instead browse to “C:\Users\yourusername\AppData\Local\Temp\”  (in W7 x64) .

 

 

 

 

5.    Inside here you will find a folder containing the MSI for the package. The name of the folder won’t be obvious; as it uses the MSI product code as the folder name, but if you do a “sort by date modified” the newest folders are likely to contain the package.

 

6.    You can now take all the files from here for deployment. As with any MSI you can use standard MSIEXEC commands to complete the installation:

eg: msiexec /i “Vmware vSphere Client 5.1.msi” Transforms=”1033.MST” REBOOT=REALLYSUPPRESS /qn for silent installation.

 

Or msiexec /i “Vmware vSphere Client 5.1.msi” Transforms=”1033.MST” REBOOT=REALLYSUPPRESS /qb for passive installation.

See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314881 for a complete list of MSI switches.

 

If you run into difficulties with the system rebooting after installation automatically, you can edit this setting in the transforms file by using a program such as InstED.

 

 

 

 

 

 



How to Uninstall SCCM 2007R3 Secondary site

I couldn't find any formal step-by-step guidance on this so I decided to create my own. I believe that below is all that is nessecery to completly remove the secondary site from the SCCM console. I've had to do this in situations where the the site is no longer required, or has to be rebuilt due to issues.

1.       Navigate to “site database” > “site management” > Select the site you with to uninstall.

2.       Browse to boundaries under the site and remove any active boundaries by right clicking and choosing “delete”.

3.       Reboot the secondary site.

4.       Open an Active Directory Users and Computers MMC

5.       Connect to the local domain controller at the location of the secondary site.

6.       Enable Advanced Features.

7.       Browse to : “System” > “System Management”

Verify that the entries for the boundaries you removed have disappeared from AD. (The OU will stay in there until the site is deleted but the address boundaries should disappear.

 

9.       Navigate to “site database” > “site management” > Right click on the secondary site you wish to uninstall.

10.       Follow the wizard through and select either delete or deinstall as appropriate to your situation.

 

 

11.       Click Finish.

12.       Monitor the logs for the primary site, when you see the below highlighted message the uninstall is completed.

 

13.       Right click on site database and click “refresh”. Verify that the site has disappeared from Site Management.

 

14.       Go into “site Database > Site Management > Your Primary site > Site Settings > Addresses” locate the old “standard address sender” with the old site code and right click on it and delete.

 

This won't leave the deleted secondary server in a completly "clean" state - any updates to SCCM you applied, hotfixes and package source folders will remain on the server. I would recomend doing a clean OS reinstall on this server before utilising it for any other purpose.