Question

I am writing a small utility program in IronPython to install applications on remote machine using managementclass which uses WMI.

Now, the script would install an application on Machine_B from Machine_A, it works fine as long as you have the msi file on the local drive of the Target machine (Machine_B, in this case). I want to be able to do same thing with .msi file being on the Host (Machine_A) machine.

network_scope = r"\\%Machine_B\root\cimv2" 
scope =  ManagementScope(network_scope, options)
scope.Connect()

mp =  ManagementPath("Win32_Product")
ogo = ObjectGetOptions()
mc = ManagementClass(scope, mp, ogo)
inParams = mc.GetMethodParameters ("Install")
inParams["PackageLocation"] = r"C:\installs\python-3.1.1.msi"
inParams["AllUsers"] = True
retVal = mc.InvokeMethod ("Install", inParams, None)
print retVal ["ReturnValue"].ToString() 

PROBLEM :

[Machine A] — Where I am running the script, and want to host the .msi file
[Machine B] — where I want to install the application

So, How can I define the UNC path for local machine ?
what will be inParams[“PackageLocation”] = ??

Answer 1

Why not have your script copy the file to the administrative share C$ of the target machine, then optionally delete it when done? Installing from a local .msi is much faster than over-the-network reads of the .msi database continually.