Pushing out Spark with Group Policy

Is there an MSI for Spark available for download? I have not had luck attempting to create my own from the EXE. If not, is there any other way people have successfully pushed out the client?

There was a MSI installer, but it was removed because of the issues it had. You can only find some experimental MSI installers of the latest SVN version of Spark here: http://www.igniterealtime.org/community/docs/DOC-1822

You can simply create a MSI installer by packaging Program files\Spark folder’s content.

I am about to push out Spark using a Group Policy Logon script, (assuming the trial goes ok and the company doesn’t decide that Instant Messaging is an unrequired form of communication) I propose to first run a simple batch script as below as a machine logon script, which will simply call the installer if required and then create the desktop shortcut, I am also going to first copy the Setup exe file into each PCs Windows directory to cut down on the bandwidth used on the original install…

@echo off
cls
echo.
TITLE Silent Spark Install

if exist “C:\Program Files\Spark\spark.exe” goto End
if not exist c:\windows\spark\spark_2_5_8.exe goto End

c:\windows\spark\spark_2_5_8.exe -q
copy **\server\share$\spark*Spark.lnk "c:\documents and settings\all users\desktop*." /y>NUL

:End

I am then going to call the below batch file from the user logon script to set the properties correctly, this will only run once for each user…

@echo off
cls
if exist “%UserProfile%\Spark\copied.txt” goto End
xcopy **\server\share$\spark**spark.properties “%UserProfile%\Spark*” /q /s /y>NUL
xcopy **\server\share$\spark**sound-settings.xml “%UserProfile%\Spark*” /q /s /y>NUL
echo Copied>"%UserProfile%\Spark\copied.txt"
echo username=%username%>>"%UserProfile%\Spark\spark.properties"
:End

In case you are interested I have included my spark.properties file below…

#Spark Settings
#Thu Jul 08 12:52:47 BST 2010
tabsOnTop=true
checkForBeta=false
contactListIconSize=24
startOnStartup=true
lastUpdateCheck=
useSystemLookAndFeel=true
notifyOnOffline=false
offlineGroupVisible=true
emoticonPack=Default
compressionOn=false
protocol=SOCKS
xmppPort=5222
sslEnabled=false
autoLoginEnabled=true
notifyOnOnline=false
chatNotificationOn=true
idleOn=true
spellCheckerEnabled=true
passwordSaved=true
resource=spark
startHidden=true
showHistory=true
toasterPopup=false
password=
hostAndPort=false
server=SERVERNAME
showEmptyGroups=false
contactListFontSize=11
buzzEnabled=true
xmppHost=
chatRoomFontSize=12
emoticonsEnabled=true
timeout=10
downloadDirectory=
proxyEnabled=false
fileTransferTimeout=30
windowTakesFocus=false
showAvatar=false
debuggerEnabled=false
timeDisplayed=true

If you would like to use this idea you need only change the bold text to suit your environment. You could also combine these two scripts into one user logon script, but the reason I am keeping them seperate is because our users do not have local admin access and I want to auto populate the Username field on the Spark logon screen to make it as simple as possible!

Stu