Installing WinPcap Silently

A standard part of my server build I do everywhere is installing WireShark. WireShark of course requires WinPcap. While you can install WireShark silently, it conveniently doesn’t install WinPcap, rendering it useless. I used to work around this by installing NMap as part of the build since NMap does include WinPcap in its’ silent install. Unfortunately this seems to have broken under Windows Server 2008 R2.

The good news is you can work around this with the hackish but effective AutoIt. Below is my AutoIt script for installing WinPcap 4.1.1. 

; ==========================================================================
; NAME: WinPcap AutoIt Installer
; 
; AUTHOR: Brian Desmond, brian@briandesmond.com
; DATE  : 11/28/2009
; ==========================================================================
#RequireAdmin

Run("WinPcap_4_1_1.exe")
WinWaitActive("WinPcap 4.1.1 Setup")
Send("!n")
WinWaitActive("WinPcap 4.1.1 Setup", "Welcome to the WinPcap")
Send("!n")
WinWaitActive("WinPcap 4.1.1 Setup", "License Agreement")
Send("!a")
WinWaitActive("WinPcap 4.1.1 Setup", "Installation options")
ControlClick("WinPcap 4.1.1 Setup", "Installation options", "[CLASS:Button; INSTANCE:2]") ; hack to click the install button
WinWaitActive("WinPcap 4.1.1 Setup", "Completing the WinPcap")
Send("!f")
Note: This depends on the version number strings in the WinPcap setup. If it changes, you’ll need to tweak the script above accordingly.

I just compiled this to an EXE using the AutoIt compiler and it worked just fine.

Posted Saturday, November 28 2009 9:06 PM by Brian Desmond | 3 Comments
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Comments, Trackbacks, & Pingbacks

#1 re: Installing WinPcap Silently

Sunday, November 29 2009 11:02 PM by Fyodor

Nmap and our silent Winpcap installer should still be working on Windows 2008 R2. Have you tried Nmap 5.10BETA1? You can report any problems per the instructions at nmap.org/.../man-bugs.html

#2 re: Installing WinPcap Silently

Thursday, December 03 2009 9:54 AM by Fredrik

Interesting to include Wireshark in the standard server build. Curious as I am, have you outlined the rest of the standard server build elsewhere on your site? What is the reasoning behind including Wireshark?

#3 re: Installing WinPcap Silently

Friday, December 04 2009 9:09 PM by Pat Richard

I can say that Brian's automated builds are a work of art. The dude's an automation freak! :-)

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