Deciphering MDT Error/Return Codes

Sometimes it may be difficult to understand the error codes given by the Litetouch deployment during installation.
For example:

Non-zero return code executing command "C:\MININT\Tools\X86\TsmBootstrap.exe" /env:SAContinue, rc = -2147467259

The return code is always in decimal mode, so for an easy “translation” you should convert them to an hexadecimal value and look to the last 8 numbers.

80004xxx - This are generic error and you should look to the installation log files.
80007xxx - This are errors where the explanation can be found using helpmsg.

For example:
8007005 = Access is Denied

This can be very helpful when you have no idea why your litetouch deployment is crashing.

Task Sequences – Installing MSI files

Because of other working commitments, I’ve been a little aways from Windows Vista Deployment.
Now that I’ve some time for this I’ve started exploring the applications installations.

MDT really facilitates the job of installing application silently.
Like pretty much everything on MDT it’s all ‘wizard driven’ and a lot of work it’s saved on that part.

Today I’ve tried to install some MSI files and will testing it I got an error with something like this:
“Return code from command = 193″

After some research I’ve noticed that the trick is to always use msiexec /i command for installing any MSI file. Without this specific command (that it’s normaly not needed when installing from a command-line), the error always occurs.

Example:
msiexec /i C:\Application.msi /qr /norestart

Hope this helps you save some time!