Read the considerations section of the installation instructions in this guide before installing Lotus Notes.

Silent installation uses a tuner program to create a transform file based on installation options that you specify when you run the tuner. When a user subsequently runs the silent install, the specified installation options are applied automatically.

For information about using the tuner and creating transform files, see the following topics:

• Customizing client installations using the tuner
• Creating a transform file
• Installation options available using the transform file

Silent install is useful for installing Lotus Notes, and optionally the Domino Administrator client and/or Domino Designer client, without user intervention. The user can execute a script or batch file to perform a complete installation without having to answer any questions or prompts. Command line options are available and are described below.

Running a silent install provides users with default install options. To customize the silent install, you can use, individually or in combination, install manifest customization and a tuner transform file.

Lotus Notes installation requires use of an install manifest file INSTALL.XML, supplied in the Lotus Notes installation media kit as deploy\install.xml. This file and its contents can be customized to control which features are installed automatically, which features appear in the feature installation panel for user selection, and whether features are presented as enabled or disabled by default. Using a silent install, you can define which features in the install manifest are installed automatically, by setting the "required" attribute to "true" for each "installfeature" ID you want installed. Features in the install manifest that have their "required" attribute set to "true" are automatically installed.

Note Also, when installing Lotus Notes using the single user Allclient installation kit on Windows, Domino Designer and Domino Administrator follow the settings in the Lotus Notes 8 MSI file. The settings in the MSI file (which affect the feature installation panel) override the settings in the Lotus Notes install manifest file (deploy\install.xml). To install Domino Designer and/or Domino Administrator, you must either select them for install using the feature installation panel or specify them for silent install using the tuner. They will not be installed, even if specified in the SELECTINSTALLFEATURES property, if they are not selected for install as part of the MSI installation.

For information about tuner usage and transform files used for silent installation, see Customizing client installations using the tuner and for information about customizing the install manifest for feature specification, see Customizing Notes installation using the install manifest.

Before you begin the silent installation process, perform the following tasks:

• Optionally use the tuner to create a transform file.
• Determine which features you want installed, open the install manifest INSTALL.XML, locate the "installfeature" ID, and set the "required" attribute to "true". Alternatively, you can specify features for install using command line arguments.
• Determine the desired installation directory and Notes data directory.
• Determine if the install will be for single or multi-user.
• Ensure that the required hardware and software components are in place and working.
• Read the Release Notes for disk-space requirements and for last-minute changes or additions to the documentation.
• Temporarily disable any screen savers and turn off any virus-detection software.
• Ensure that all other applications are closed. Otherwise, you may corrupt shared files, and the Install program may not run properly.
• There is currently no Windows command line option for specifying a single user or multi-user installation. Default installation occurs for a single user.

You can specify a non-default installation directory and Notes data directory using PROGDIR and DATADIR properties on the command line. For example, for a new user on Windows, Lotus Notes is installed to C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes by default.

To select the desired destination directory, specify each property on the command line. For example, if you want to install to C:\IBM\Lotus\Notes, use the following command line syntax:

setup /S /V"SELECTINSTALLFEATURES=Activities,Editors PROGDIR=C:\IBM\Lotus\Notes DATADIR=C:\IBM\Lotus\Notes\Data /qn"

To use Notes silent installation on Windows

You can specify command line options during silent Notes install on Windows. You must be logged in as an administrative user or user with elevated privileges.

The Allclient installation method, which enables installation of Lotus Notes, Domino Designer, and the Domno Administrator clients, is not available for multi-user install; it is only available for single user installation.

1. Open a command window.

2. Change to the directory in which the Lotus Notes installation media kit's SETUP.EXE file is resident.

3. Type the silent installation command.

Example commands are provided below. Note that these examples do not illustrate use of a transform file.

To see command line examples that use a transform file, see Using transform files for end-user installations.

• Use this format to run the install in silent mode, using default values, without a progress bar:

  setup.exe /s /v"/qn"

  Note For example, this command installs Notes to the single user default C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes directory and Notes data folders and files to the C:\Program Files\IBM\Lotus\Notes\data directory.

  When installation is complete, the shortcut icon(s) appears on the desktop.

• Use this format to display a message when the installation is complete or it has failed. Use the + parameter as follows:

  setup.exe /s /v"/qn+"

• Use this format to display a progress bar during the installation, in addition to displaying the message indicating that the installation is complete or it has failed:

  setup.exe /s /v"/qb+"

• Use this format to specify the install manifest features to install using the command line. Obtain the "installfeature" ID syntax from the Lotus Notes install manifest (deploy\install.xml). To install any of these features, include the feature ID value in the “SELECTINSTALLFEATURES” property on the command line as shown below. Specify comma-separated feature names in quotes as follows. Note the placement of the quote, equal sign, and space characters.

  setup /s /v"SELECTINSTALLFEATURES=Activities,Sametime,Editors,CAE /qn"

  Note Each feature in the Lotus Notes install manifest whose "required' attribute is set to "true" will be installed, regardless of whether it is specified in the command line in the SELECTINSTALLFEATURES statement.

  To pass a parameter that contains intervening spaces, such as a directory path, enclose the parameter in quotes using a backslash quote sequence as follows:

  setup /s /V"SELECTINSTALLFEATURES=Activities,Editors PROGDIR=\"C:\Program Files\Lotus\Notes\" DATADIR=\"C:\Program Files\Lotus\Notes\Data\" /qn"

  Specify as few or as many feature IDs on the command line as desired.

You can specify these command line options when running a Lotus Notes silent install on Linux®. You must be logged in as a root user.

1. Open a command window or shell.

2. Change to the directory in which the Lotus Notes install kit's setup.sh file is resident.

3. Type the silent installation command as shown in this example:

The following entry specifies that the command will run in silent mode.

- silent

The following entry sets the variable to accept the license agreement panel.

-V licenseAccepted="true|false"

The following entry sets the install location for Notes client. The value must not contain an ending slash symbol (\).

-P installLocation="<location>"

The following entry sets the list of optional install features that can be installed.

-V selectInstallFeatures="<list of comma separated install feature ids>"

This argument overrides all install feature "default" attributes in the install manifest. If you use this argument, only the install features listed in the argument and the "required" install features are installed/selected.

-V removeInstallFeatures="<list of comma separated install feature ids>"


This sets the list of optional install features that can be removed on upgrade.

setup.sh -silent -V licenseAccepted="true"

For information about creating and using a batch file in conjunction with silent install, see Providing a batch file for installing the Notes client.

See also

Setting up client installation and installation methods

Glossary