Deploy MS .Net framework 3.5 with Group policies (GPO)

Today I was faced with the challenge to deploy Microsoft .Net Framework 3.5 with GPO (software installation). The application itself have many dependencies/requirements to have a successfull installation:

  • MS XML Parser 6
  • RGB Rasterizer
  • .NET FW 2.0 SP1
  • .NET FW 3.0 SP1

Create a AIP (Administrative Installation point)

I found a blog (Project84) that had created a batch script for creating the required administrative installation point. The script worked for me when I edited some parameters in the script:

  • Row 2: Changed WORKFOLDER
  • Row 14: Changed to correct path to dotnetfx35.exe

After this I got the folders to be able to deploy software to x86 systems.

MST files (Micsoft

For installation to work with GPO's I created some MST-files for the deployment to set the property VSEXTUI=1 to the .Net Framework installers (2.0 SP1, 3.0 SP1 and 3.5).

GPO-deployment

To deploy all software I created 4 GPO's in the correct OU and assigned the software to computers in the following order:

  1. RGB Rasterizer (no MST needed)
  2. .NET FW 2.0 SP1 (with MST)
  3. .NET FW 3.0 SP1 (with MST)
  4. .NET FW 3.5 (with MST)

Silent installation

If you need to do a silent installation of the .NET 3.5 then you can download the redistributable package and run it with the following command:

dotnetfx35.exe /q /norestart

Some useful links

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