Deploying AirServer Silently

Detailed below is the process we used to deploy AirServer (http://www.airserver.com) across our enterprise network silently. We decided to run the Beta version (1.9), there are many features and bug fixes that were important to us, one major benefit is the new authentication methods. So far we haven’t had any problems with the Beta version, but we haven’t been using it long!

If you’re struggling to get AirServer working on your enterprise network you might like to check out my earlier post on using AirServer across subnets.

AirServer Prerequisites

Installing AirServer requires that you have Bonjour and DirectX 9 installed. (Even if you have a newer version of DirectX you must install DirectX 9 also, otherwise you’ll get a warning about “D3DXCompileShader” when trying to run the program.)

We plan to install the prerequisites as part of this process, you may not need to if you’re already running iTunes and already have DirectX 9 installed.

Bonjour

Download Bonjour Print Services for Windows from Apple.

Extract the contents of the executable using your favourite tool (We recommend 7-Zip)

You do not need to install the Bonjour Print Services (BonjourPS.msi), simply install Bonjour itself (Bonjour.msi)

We use ConfigMgr 2012 and Bonjour will deploy as an Application, so we used that. If you want to use a package, ahve the older version of ConfigMgr or SMS, or use Group Policy to deploy your packages use the command:

Bonjour.msi /quiet /norestart

DirectX 9

Download DirectX 9c from Microsoft.

Extract the contents of the executable using your favourite tool (We recommend 7-Zip)

Sadly the DirectX redistributable will not deploy as an Application, so if you are using Configuration Manager you’ll need to deploy it as a package. If you’re using Group Policy for application deployment you can use the same command.

dxsetup.exe /silent

Installing AirServer Silently

Once the prereqs are installed you can go ahead and install AirServer. The command for installing AirServer silently is: (Remember to replace YOURKEY with your key to automatically activate the software)

msiexec /i AirServer-1.9.0.msi /qn PIDKEY=YOURKEY

Configuring the Firewall

When you run the program for the first time you will be prompted to open up the firewall. We don’t allow users to modify the firewall settings here, so we have made the changes globally via Group Policy.

If you’re running a mixed 32-bit and 64-bit environment you’ll need to add two rules, one for “C:program files (x86)airserverairserverairserver.exe” and one for “C:program filesairserverairserverairserver.exe”.

In Group Policy Management Editor drill down to “Computer Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Windows Firewall… > Inbound Rules” and add the rule.

Done

That’s it! You should now be able to roll out AirServer to all your clients successfully. Do let me know how you get on in the comments!

Posted

July 22, 2013

Application Deployment

[email protected]

Tags:

AirServer, Application Deployment, ConfigMgr, iPad mirroring

Comments

7 responses to “Deploying AirServer Silently”

Dwayne Alton

September 5, 2013

I have two questions for you . . .

(1) How did you add and activate the license code for AirServer?

(2) Does this installation method allow all users on a PC to use AirServer? Their documentation indicates that a user must login with elevated credentials and run it or run a command from the CLI. We can obviously script the latter if necessary.

Reply
1. Alex
  
  September 9, 2013
  
  Hi Dwayne,
  1) In the “Installing AirServer Silently” section, the command needs to have your key in it where it says YOURKEY: msiexec /i AirServer-1.9.0.msi /qn PIDKEY=YOURKEY
  That way it installs the key and activates. I’ll add a little note in the article to point that out.
  2) The installation method mentions does indeed install the program for all users.
  
  Reply
Ben

December 5, 2013

Hi – we already have a previous version of Airserver installed across some of our domains PC’s.

Will this method work when to upgrade old versions of Airserver to the latest version?

To further complicate things a lot of the Airserver installs have separate keys as we bought multiple licenses over period of time as we didn’t initially roll out Airserver to all users.

Thanks

Ben

Reply
1. [email protected]
  
  December 24, 2013
  
  Hi Ben,
  Yes, it will overwrite any old versions of AirServer, however I’m not sure about using this method to change the key.
  You might find that AirServer support can help you out and combine all of your keys together? Otherwise you’d have to create multiple deployments, one for each of the keys you have!
  
  Reply
Mohsin

April 2, 2014

Hi Alex, great article
is there anyway to have the following: – once installed on the machines
1 – startup with windows
2 – have an onscreen passcode to connect
3 – have it setup as for all users?

many thanls

Mohsin

Reply
1. [email protected]
  
  April 10, 2014
  
  We don’t configure the settings directly, we issue a document that suggests the settings that users should use, and that’s worked quite well for us, although I can see the benefit in setting it all up centrally. I haven’t looked into setting it all centrally, I’d be interested in hearing if you find a way.
  
  Reply
2. BJ
  
  August 18, 2014
  
  Mohsin, you might have figured this out already, but maybe this will help someone else…
  
  AirServer has a document they can send you for deploying the msi with the config items you are after. See here: http://support.airserver.com/customer/portal/articles/1606520-do-you-have-a-deployment-guide-for-airserver-on-windows-
  
  You can apply settings to the msi install via command line or a transform file. Run the command/batch fiule as admin to enable for everyone. Example:
  
  msiexec.exe /passive /i AirServerSetup.msi [email protected] AUTOSTART=ENABLE PASSWORDTYPE=PASSCODE
  
  Reply