Silent Mode

To run an installer in silent mode, specify the /silent switch on the command line. We highly recommend that you specify a file that will receive a report, for example:

NinitePro.exe /silent report.txt /select [some apps]

Without this there will be no indication of failure or debugging information, apart from the return code of the installer.

You can also specify . as the report file to output the report on stdout (standard output):

NinitePro.exe /silent . /select [some apps]

That will work great in batch (.bat) files with Ninite installers, but if you're working interactively on the command-line you'll probably want to wait for the Ninite Installer to complete with something like:

cmd /c NinitePro.exe /silent . /select [some apps]

By default, Ninite skips the installation of applications that are already up to date on the system. The /repair switch can be used to force the re-installation of applications that are up to date. Here's an example:

NinitePro.exe /silent report.txt /repair /select [some apps]

If you are behind a proxy server that needs a user name and password, use the following switch in combination with the silent switch:

/proxyauth <user> <password>

Report Format

When run on a single machine the report will be a text file. With remote mode it is in comma separated value (CSV) format and can be viewed in Excel.

The first line is the overall status, which can be:

  • OK Everything is up to date
  • Partial Some or all apps need to be updated
  • Failed [reason] Ninite failed for some reason

This is followed by per-app status information in the format "App Name : [status]"

In audit mode the status can be:

  • OK - [version] means the app is up to date
  • Update - [old version] -> [new version] means the app needs to be updated
  • Not up to date - [old version] -> [new version] means the app needs to be updated but Ninite can't update it (some anti-virus apps with built in updaters)
  • Not installed means the app is not installed
  • Skipped - version means the app is excluded from the check, currently .NET and Office

In install/update mode, there are many different potential messages. It is impossible to list them all because some of them can contain error codes from the operating system or from the installer programs.

  • OK
  • Install failed [message]
  • Download failed [message]
  • Failed [message]
  • Skipped (already installed/update not supported)
  • Skipped (language not supported)
  • Skipped (program running/locked)
  • Skipped (up to date)
  • Skipped [other message]

For example, the line:

Chrome : Install failed - Could not verify installation (1), 1 – 2271

Means Ninite failed to install Chrome, or at least it could not find it after running the installer.

To summarize, in audit mode, the message is always one of the five listed messages. In install mode, there are many different potential messages, so it's probably best to use the following approach:

  1. "OK" means the update or install succeeded
  2. "Skipped (up to date)" means the app is up to date
  3. All other messages indicate some kind of error condition

Pro Classic only

These features are only available in Ninite Pro Classic.

We're working on documentation for the new Pro web interface. For now the available help for that is inline in the interface.

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