Various Msiexec.exe Command Line Switches

Msiexec.exe command line install options install, uninstall, administrative install, advertise a product) display options (full, basic or no UI during the installation restart options (if the machine will be restarted after the installation) logging options. Kindly refer to these guides on how to install Windows Package Manager (Winget CLI), how to install, upgrade and uninstall Chocolatey, how to install, upgrade and uninstall software with Chocolatey, and how to install Winget CLI. In this guide, you will learn about the various Msiexec.exe Command Line Switches.

The Windows Installer technology uses Msiexec.exe for installing MSI and MSP packages. This tool gives you full control over the installation process, allowing you to set various options and parameters as shown below.

Msiexec.exe Switch Examples

Here are some Msiexec.exe switch examples below. Please refer to this link for more parameters.

/quiet, /q, qn       Fully silent mode
/passive             Unattended mode, shows progress bar only.
/norestart           Do not restart the system after the installation
/forcerestart        Restart the system after installation is complete
/log, /l             Enable Logging

Please see the following related articles: How to install the Microsoft PSWindowsUpdate module silently, How to install and Update Azure PowerShell on your Windows PC, Various methods to launch the Event Viewer, Various Ansible Authentication Options, and Various methods on how to launch Windows Task Manager.

Silent Install Methods

Example: Silently install the MSI package:

msiexec /i C:setup.msi /qn

Silently install the msi package, no reboot

msiexec /i C:setup.msi /qn /norestart

Silently install the msi package and write the installation log to the file

C:msilog.txt
msiexec /i C:setup.msi /l*v C:msilog.txt /qn

Silent Uninstall Methods

Silently uninstall the msi package:

msiexec /x C:setup.msi /qn

Silently uninstall the msi package by the product code:

msiexec /x {XXXXXXXX-xxxxxxC6-01Fxxxxxxx1} /qn

I hope you found this blog post helpful on the various Msiexec.exe Command Line Switches. Please let me know in the comment session if you have any questions.