Requirements ^

The basic requirement for a working installation of WPKG is to create a share accessible in read mode from your computers.

If you want to collect logs for further processing, it is advisable to create a Logs subdirectory, accessible in write mode from WPKG clients, in order to store the log files.

First, grab a copy of WPKG from the official website, unpack the zip file to a directory on your server, and then set up an SMB share (for example, \\myserver\wpkg).

What is WPKG-GP? ^

WPKG-GP is a client that runs as a Group Policy extension and displays messages regarding WPKG progress on the machine logon screen. We will deploy WPKG-GP at first via GPO using WPKG mechanisms. To do so, we have to set up a package in the WPKG tree.

Once you have obtained the WPKG-GP setup, copy WPKG-Gp-%version%_%architecture%.exe to the packages/WPKG-GP directory.

You can download WPKG-GP from its GitHub releases page.

Set up Wpkg-GP ^

Create the WPKg-GP.ini file

Create the file packages/WPKG-GP/WPKG-Gp.ini. This will be your WPKG configuration file pushed by the installer. You’ll have to edit the lines highlighted in bold, according to your environment.

Tip: You can also control some parameters via GPO. ADMX templates are available in the source package or via GitHub.

Create Wpkg-GP Package

Next, create the package file packages/WPKG-GP.xml, and change the value for the variable VERSION in order to reflect the setup version you downloaded:

Create the Wpkg-GP Installation Group Policy Object

Before creating the group policy, create a wpkg-gp.cmd in your WPKG root share. Change the variables highlighted in bold to reflect your environment.

Now create a Group Policy object and link it to the organizational unit of the computers on which you want to manage software packages with wpkg.

Add a computer startup script in Computer Configuration/Policies/Windows Settings/Scripts/Startup: \\myserver\wpkg\wpkg-gp.cmd

In the same GPO, you can adjust the WPKG-GP settings.

WPKG hosts and profiles database ^

In order to have a working installation of WPKG, you need to create a host and profiles database.

To complete this tutorial, you need at least a default profile assigned to all hosts. So let’s edit the profiles.xml file at the WPKG root:

Tip: You can create a single XML file per profile in the Profiles folder or use a single profiles.xml file.

Next, edit the hosts.xml:

The hosts file is processed from top to bottom, and the first profile match will be applied. This means that every profile you create must contain the wpkg-gp package, or it will be uninstalled at every reboot.

For example, you can create a workstations profile:

If you have naming conventions for your hosts, assigning profiles is a breeze. Your hosts.xml could look like this:

Useful resources ^

The WPKG wiki contains many silent installers.

If you want to give users more control over Wpkg-GP operations, you could consider adding the Wpkg-gp-client.

There’s a web application called WPKG Express 2 that can be used to manage WPKG configuration and packages. It also offers reporting.

Conclusion ^

Even if WPKG looks like an old project, it is still a good deployment tool, designed with simplicity in mind. At first glance, silent installer creation could seem difficult, but after some practice it will become easier than many other similar products.

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