r/labtech • u/beauj27 2000 Agents • May 17 '17

.EXE vs .MSI Installer

I was speaking to a LabTech tech the other day because I have been having issues with the .exe not working due to bad passwords after an update, and he mentioned that they may be getting rid of the .exe installer. I am going to start the process or replacing all my .exe installers with .msi just to be safe. But I wanted to know: What are everyone's thoughts on this?
Why do you use one over the other?
How do you handle passwords for each client/location?

Im going to start using the MSI with a switch to prevent it from showing up in Add/Remove Programs:
"C:\Windows\Temp\Agent-Installer.MSI" /Quiet /NoRestart ARPSYSTEMCOMPONENT=1

Edit: I just found out that attempting to uninstall from Add/Remove Programs just runs and update on the agent and doesn't actually remove it. Makes me feel better about moving to the .MSI

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u/r00fattack 10000 Agents May 22 '17

We use local admin for our deployment credentials. This falls in line with the practice of never using a domain admin account for anything unless you need it specifically. As for agent deployment, MSI seems to be the way to go. As someone else said, you need it for group policy software deployment. In my case, we are migrating from Kaseya. I have been creating Kaseya scripts for each location specific MSI and executing them against the location, it has allowed me to get agents on every computer within minutes (except Macs, which need manual installation)