Summary
This article describes how to use the Msiexec.exe tool to install the Windows Support Tools from a command prompt.
More Information
Support personnel and network administrators can use the Support Tools to manage their networks and to troubleshoot problems. Because the Support Tools are not installed with the Windows operating system, you must install them separately from the \Support\Tools\SupTools.msi file on the Windows CD-ROM.
Typical Installation
When you use the Msiexec.exe tool, you can run a quiet unattended installation of Suptools.msi by using the msiexec /i x:\support\tools\suptools.msi /q command at a command prompt, where x is the location of the Support folder on a CD-ROM or local drive. This command performs a typical installation of the Support Tools, and it installs 57 tools. The installation uses 4.84 megabytes (MB) of space in the Program Files\Support Tools folder.
Complete Installation
To install the complete version of the Support Tools, use the addlocal=all switch. This switch instructs the Msiexec.exe tool to install all the available features locally. To use the
addlocal=all switch, use the msiexec /i x:\support\tools\suptools.msi /q addlocal=all command. This command performs a complete installation of the Support Tools, and it installs all 103 tools. The installation uses 11.4 MB of space in the Program Files\Support Tools folder.
You can run Windows Installer packages (.msi packages) either by double-clicking the .msi file or by calling it with the Msiexec.exe tool from a command prompt.
For additional information about how to install the support tools, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
306794 How to Install the Support Tools from the Windows XP CD-ROM
For additional information about command-line switches for the Microsoft Windows Installer Tool, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
314881 Command-Line Switches for the Microsoft Windows Installer Tool
Note If you use either the connstat or topchk commands after you install the support tools, you receive the following error message:
Can't open perl script "C:\Program": No such file or directory.
This issue occurs because these scripts do not work correctly if a space is in the path. To work around this issue, copy the Support Tools folder to the root folder, and then rename the Support Tools folder to SupportTools (all one word).
