GetRight

MS Active Setup

GetRight and Active Setup:
It is possible to use GetRight to download the components used by Microsoft's Active Setup programs. Active Setup does not resume downloads (as far as I've seen), and being disconnected in the middle is very possible.

This info was written quite awhile ago...may not work correctly, but gives you some info to get started.


This procedure is for the EXPERT user ONLY!
NOTICE: While this has worked once for me (and it was not Internet Explorer that was tried, and it did not work the first time), these steps are not guaranteed to work for every Active Setup program.
This was not how Microsoft designed their Active Setup programs to install. This procedure is not guaranteed to work. Proceed at your own risk.

You will need at least a CAB file extractor (I used the Microsoft Powertool CABVIEW), and a bit of patience.
This page is using the standard browser colors so it will print out better than the white on black pages. (Wink, Wink, Nudge, Nudge...)


Read thru these instructions to be sure you understand each step before starting.

  1. Let the small Active Setup program download installer run until it starts to download files, then Cancel.
  2. Go to \%WINDOWS%\"Temporary Internet Files" (or \%WINDOWS%\Temp, different ones sound like they store it in different places.)
  3. Look in the CACHE# directories for one that contains a CAB file that looks like it is the right name for the files you were trying to install. (Such as IE4SETUP.CAB or something). These CACHE# directories were hidden--you may have to change your Explorer properties to see them. OR look in the \%WINDOWS%\"Active Setup.log" file--again they store it in different places.
  4. Extract the contents of the CAB file. For the one I did, it contained a CIF file.
  5. This CIF file contained the different options within the setup program.
  6. For each option you want, find the "URL#" items. In the one I did, it only contained the filenames, without the full URL.
  7. Look in the other files in that CACHE# directory (I used WORDPAD), in one should be the URL that pointed to the CAB file you used above. Use the beginning of that URL to get the path to add to the URL# filename in the above item. This gives you the full URL so that you may download the files using GetRight.
  8. I'm not sure why yet, but GetRight did not download the file correctly when it was using several alternate addresses. I let GetRight find the fastest server, then deleted all the other alternates and then it worked OK. Or maybe it was a fluke from the really bad connections.
  9. After downloading all the files in the CIF section that you want, extract the files from the CAB file(s) you downloaded.
  10. Use the COMMAND# and SWITCHES# in the CIF section to get the commands to run to install.
  11. Look at any other items in the CIF section that you may need. For example, Reboot=1 is one that presumably means you should reboot after installing.
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