Silent Install 6.0.7

This isn't implemented yet. Eraser has a bootstrapper that's quite "dumb" at the moment so this can be for future use. Perhaps you can open a Trac ticket?
 
According to that link that I posted there was already a TRAC ticket created in December of 08. Should I create another one and if so where do I go to create one?

Thanks.
 
Trac is here. You can browse the tickets to see if a current ticket exists; if not, you can register (it's as simple as registering for this forum), and can then post a ticket of your own. That kind of direct user input is what open source software is all about, in my view.

David
 
From the support perspective, it's not a problem, it's a requested feature. Of course we all have the problem that we don't get everything we might want ...

The change was not implemented in 6.0.8, which was a maintenance (= bug fix) release.

David
 
Is silent installation supported at latest release 6.0.9? I did a search on the Trac, I got this:

Timestamp:
10/19/2009 12:01:07 PM (2 years ago)
Author:
lowjoel
Message:

Use the stock VC redistributables and use the silent install switches.

However it was from 2009. So I guess that it is still not there yet. Just wonder if we could add that ourselves, what's the procedure here?. I think that silent installation is an important feature.
 
If it's an accepted Trac ticket, it will be implemented in due time, and I would expect that a ticket as old as this one would be implemented in 6.2. But only Joel can confirm this.

David
 
Thanks David. Without silent installation, I would see if I could package the Eraser.exe (maybe some dlls) without installation or not with our solution.
 
Don't forget that the target machines will need to have .NET (Version 3.5 for Eraser 6.0.9) installed.

David
 
Thanks David for the reminder. After reading on the forum and evaluating both Eraser V6 and Eraser 5.x. I feel that Eraser 5.x is better suited for our needs which is launching the eraser silently from the service context and just delete specified folders. As for Eraser 5.x, there is no installation needed as well. That's all I found out so far and need to do continue investigating on this.
 
Clearly, Eraser 5 is better adapted to your immediate needs. But do bear in mind that it deals less comfortably with Win 7 and Vista than Eraser 6, and that it is no longer supported.

David
 
Thanks for your points, David and it is very valuable.

>>But do bear in mind that it deals less comfortably with Win 7 and Vista than Eraser 6, and that it is no longer supported.

I know that Eraser 5 is not supported any more. However we really could not do what we want at Eraser 6. I would hope that we could add the same capability back to Eraser 6.

However I do have concern about Vista and Win 7 support. Do you mean the support for UAC? Is there is post for this? I did a search and didn't find anything. Any detailed information would be highly appreciated.
 
It's not just UAC. It is essentially that Win 7 and Vista, unlike XP, do not allow programs to run with administrative permissions (even from an account that has administrator status) unless they are explicitly elevated (aka "run as Administrator").

For functions that require administrative permissions (notably free space erasing), Eraser 5 (which is pre-Vista code) can be run as administrator, but it is not set up to do so, whereas there is an established procedure for doing this with Eraser 6.0 (see the FAQ), and hopefully Eraser 6.2 will make things even more straightforward.

If you are doing 'silent' installations, this is presumably for users who are controlled and who may not have administrative permissions. With Eraser 5 or 6, such users can erase files and folders within their own accounts, and (with luck) the contents of the Recycle Bin, but they will not be able to erase free space. If that is all you require, there should be no major worries running Eraser 5.

The other approach is to use the portable version of Eraser 5.8.8 , which can be copied to a flash drive, and can be used in any machine without explicit installation. I have used 5.8.8 portable for basic erasing tasks on Win 7 x64 without problems. If what you want is the facility for a sysadmin or reasonably competent user to do the erasing, Eraser 5.8.8 portable may meet your needs without installation hassles.

David
 
Thanks for the detailed explanation, David.

>>The other approach is to use the portable version of Eraser 5.8.8
Thanks very much for the suggestion. The portable version exactly suits my needs. With this, I just need to package the eraser with our software and I don't even need to install it. It is working great so far.

As for admin privilege, we would run the eraser from the service context ( running as local system) and it would have all the permission it needs and I would think that erasing the free space should not be a problem although I need to confirm it.
 
I'm glad the suggestion about 5.8.8 portable was of use.

pli said:
As for admin privilege, we would run the eraser from the service context ( running as local system) and it would have all the permission it needs and I would think that erasing the free space should not be a problem although I need to confirm it.
Click to expand...
This sounds interesting, and (as you describe it) is new to me. Please could you explain the procedure you are using to run 'from the service context'?

David
 
It's arguably the most dangerous thing anyone can be doing to a Windows install (I term it God Mode), so I'd recommend against this being shared this freely.
 
I defer to Joel on this, and withdraw my request.

David
 
We are not doing anything special. However since Joel said that we should not share this freely, so I won't go into further.

>>It's arguably the most dangerous thing anyone can be doing to a Windows install (I term it God Mode)

I might be missing sth here. I am not sure that it could be that powerful. It still could not remove any locked files.
 
Anything that bypasses Windows protection systems can potentially be misused. We all hate UAC, but it was introduced precisely because most XP installations effectively had no security at all because they ran in Administrator mode.

I probably wouldn't use Joel's adjectives in this case, but I think his point is fair, which is why I deferred to it.

David
 
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