From a defined list of software, Batch Win Installer can:

• automatically install software on 64 bit Windows 10/11 x64 machine silently without prompts
• check what software is installed and offer to install and/or upgrade software
• if online, scan program's websites directly to determine the latest version of the software available

Batch Win Installer is a batch file which must be run as an administrator and uses two command line utilities

• Windows binary of GNU Wget (https://eternallybored.org/misc/wget/) used to retrieve files using http(s)
• Windows binary of Xidel (https://github.com/benibela/xidel) a commandline tool to download and extract data from HTML pages

The advantages of Batch Win Installer :

• can be run from a USB portable drive
• settings for software packages are stored as two separate text files allowing you to add software packages to install
• the settings for software packages can be retrieved online on startup of Batch Win Installer
• on startup, Batch Win Installer will confirm the installers for the software is accessible and if online, will download missing installers

Several command line switches are available

-help              Displays help text
-onlineupdate      Does online update of configuration files and checks if software installed on machine and update if necessary
-offlineupdate     Skips any online update of configuration files and checks if software installed on machine and update if necessary
-checkonline       Check online for latest versions from software's websites ONLY
-showprograms | -showpackages    Show list of programs available online

install pkgname [pkgname2 ...]     - install pkgname (multiple packages can be specified)
upgrade pkgname [pkgname2 ...]     - upgrade  pkgname (multiple packages can be specified)
uninstall pkgname [pkgname2 ...]   - uninstall pkgname (multiple packages can be specified)
checkonline pkgname [pkgname2 ...] - check website to see if what the latest version for pkgname (multiple packages can be specified)

• 64 bit version of Windows 10 or Windows 11 with administrator access
• online access when run for the first time to download configuration files and software installers

To install, unzip the latest Batch-Win-Installer.zip file to a folder. The Batch-Win-Installer.zip contains the following files and folders

• Batch-Win-Installer.bat
• settings.bat
• readme.txt
• license.txt
• wget subfolder containing 64 bit version of GNU Wget v1.21.3, wget.exe from https://eternallybored.org/misc/wget/
• xidel subfolder containing 64 bit version of Xidel v0.99 pre-release, xidel.exe from xidel-0.9.9.20220424.8389.2d2ee7befb8a.win64.zip dated 2022-04-24 from https://sourceforge.net/projects/videlibri/files/Xidel/Xidel%20development/ (Xidel's home page is https://www.videlibri.de/xidel.html)

Next, edit settings.bat which contains the following lines to set certain environment variables

set onlineupdateurl=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/devtee/batch-win-installer/main/appinfo/
set appinfourl=https://api.github.com/repos/devtee/batch-win-installer/contents/appinfo
set introtitle1=Batch-Win-Installer %bwiver% by Dev Anand Teelucksingh - [email protected] -
set introtitle2=for Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society (https://ttcs.tt/) 
set orgname=TTCS

set softwarelist=firefox libreoffice libreofficehelp pdfsam notepadplusplus vlc joplin bleachbit 7zip sumatrapdf tuxpaint tuxpaintstamps puzzlecollection

The critical one to edit is softwarelist which is the list of software programs that Batch Win Installer will :

• download the software configuration files and software installers
• install / upgrade software using the software installers
• check the software's websites for the latest version

Save any changes and run Batch-Win-Installer as an administrator. This is needed for Batch Win Installer to install and remove software.

Settings for software packages are stored as two batch files in the appinfo subfolder.

• name of program-install.txt
• name of program-uninstall.txt

Here's a typical example-install.txt for the software program "example"

set pkgver.example=105.0.3
set ver.example=%pkgver.example%
set name.example=Example Package
set exe.example=Example Setup %pkgver.example%.exe
set url.example="https://example.example/download/%exe.example%"
set arg.example=-ms
set chk.example=%ProgramFiles%\example\example.exe
set regtext.example=Example
set regsearch.example=%uninstallreg64%
set followup.example=reg import "%appinfopath%!\example.reg"
set regurl.example=https://example.example
set regexp.example=substring-before(substring-after(/html/body/div[2]/div[1]/div[5]div/div/p,'Example '),' for')

Here's a short explaination of each of these variables :

• pkgver.example - this is the version of the software that would be listed on the software's website

• ver.example - this is the version number of the software when its installed on a Windows machine. Typically in the Windows Registry, the software typically puts the version in the DisplayVersion subkey. However, some installers DON'T create the DisplayVersion subkey so for those programs, a .reg file with the DisplayVersion subkey with the proper version will have to be provided and the followup.example will import such a reg file after installation

• exe.example - this is the name of the installer file when downloaded

• url.example - this is the direct download URL of the software ; Batch Win Installer will download the installer (via wget) and put it in the files subfolder

• arg.example - the command line switches passed to the installer to install silently.

• chk.example - the location of a file which proves that the software is installed.

• regtext.example - the unique text that will allow Batch Win Installer to find the registry entry for the installed program

• regsearch.example - Windows creates an uninstall entry in the Windows Registry in either two locations : HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall - for 64 bit programs installed in 64 bit Windows environment HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall - for 32 bit programs installed in a 64 bit Windows environment So regsearch.example is set to either %uninstallreg64% or %uninstallreg32% so that Batch Win Installer "knows" where to search for the program's uninstall entry in the Windows registry

• followup.example - this will be the cmd to run Windows 10 reg command to import example.reg. If Batch Win Installer is downloading the configuration files (example-install.txt and example-uninstall.txt) and it sees followup.example defined, it will download example.reg

• regurl.example - this is the url where Batch Win Installer will query using xidel.exe to find the latest version of the software

• regexp.example - this is the xpath expression that Batch Win Installer (using xidel.exe) will extract from the url specified in regurl.example to find the latest version of the software

Here's a typical example-uninstall.txt for the software program "example"

set uninstall.example=msiexec /qn /uninstall %installreg.example%

• uninstall.example - this is the uninstall command used to uninstall the software if a newer version is to be installed. %installreg.example% is the software's subkey found in the Windows Registry under either %uninstallreg64% or %uninstallreg32%, which is usually the software's product code GUID which varies with each version of the software.

• Email : [email protected]
• You can find me Mastodon at https://techhub.social/@devtee
• Visit the Trinidad and Tobago Computer Society's (TTCS) https://ttcs.tt/ and join the TTCS announce mailing list!