Silent Installation of Vectorworks 2016

NOTE: This article is intended for IT professionals with an understanding of the command line/terminal interface. 

This article is not intended for all users and is not a required procedure for installing Vectorworks in a standard work environment. 

Do not use these steps unless you are specifically attempting to initiate a silent install of Vectorworks in a network environment or are specifically instructed to do so by Vectorworks Technical Support.

The Vectorworks installer provides a command line interface for either pre-populating options or driving a silent installation from the command line.

When doing a silent installation, there are six required arguments:

  --mode
  --unattendedmodeui
--UserName      

  --CompName      

  --Serial      

  --installdir      

These arguments are case sensitive and are preceded by a double dash (--).

Options:

--help
Displays a list of valid options

--mode

qt
win32
unattended

Installation Mode

--unattendedmodeuin

one
minimal
minimal/WithDialogs 

Controls the UI for Unattended mode

--Serial

Serial Number

--UserName

Username

--CompName

Company Name

--installdir

Install Directory

Mac:

Insert the installation DVD or unzip the downloadable installer or updater.  

Open Terminal.app (found in /Applications/Utilities)

Change directory to either the mounted Install DVD directory or the downloaded installer folder.
 

To install, enter the following, all on one line with CXXUSE-ABCDEF-GHIJKL-SRNMBR, USERNAME and COMPANY NAME replaced with your serial number, username and company name.

sudo "Install Vectorworks2016.app"/Contents/MacOS/installbuilder.sh --mode unattended --unattendedmodeui none --Serial CXXUSE-ABCDEF-GHIJKL-SRNMBR --UserName "USERNAME" --CompName "COMPANY NAME" --installdir /Applications/"Vectorworks 2016"

When the installation is finished, control will return to Terminal.app. You can verify if it is complete by examining the file InstallerLog.txt (or UpdaterLog.txt) to see if it says "Installation completed" at the end of the log. This file can be found in the installation directory.

The instructions are identical for an updater, aside from modifying them for differing filenames (UpdateVectorworks.app, for instance)

Windows:

Insert your installation DVD or unzip the downloadable installer or updater.  

Open a command prompt. (Run the command prompt as an administrator.)

Navigate to the location of the installer in the Command Prompt. 

To install, enter the following, all on one line with CXXUSE-ABCDEF-GHIJKL-SRNMBR, USERNAME and COMPANY NAME replaced with your serial number, username and company name.
 

"Install Vectorworks2016.exe" --mode unattended --unattendedmodeui none --Serial CXXUSE-ABCDEF-GHIJKL-SRNMBR --UserName "UserName" --CompName "Company Name" --installdir "C:\Program Files\Vectorworks 2016"

The installer will immediately return control to the command line.  This is normal.  The installer will continue installing in the background into your destination.  You can verify if it is complete by examining the file InstallerLog.txt (or UpdaterLog.txt) to see if it says "Installation completed" at the end of the log. This file can be found in the installation directory.

The instructions are identical for an updater, aside from modifying them for differing filenames (UpdateVectorworks.exe, for instance)