From: Mike <ruby@...>
Date: 2006-04-05T09:32:55+09:00
Subject: Re: system() with .msi files on WinXP

> I've tried that and start... still no go. Here's the code:
> 
> def install_programs(program_list)
>    #program_list is a list of absolute paths.
>    program_list.each do |wup|
>      Dir.chdir(File.dirname(wup))
>      puts Dir.getwd
>      puts(File.basename(wup))
>      system('msiexec -i #{File.basename(wup)}')
>      end
> end
> 
> system on windows is problematic! I think this is more of a 
> windows issue than a ruby issue as I have the same problem 
> with python and ruby when working with system.
>
Try working backwards - install the .msi manually using msiexec.exe
<switches> file.msi at the command line. Once you know it works, create a
script that just calls system('what_worked_above').

Does that work?

Then, once you know what works with MSI, build that into the script. If it
doesn't work with the one-line system() script, then I'm not sure what to
suggest.

-M