How to Find the Installation Switches for a EXE Setup File

Installation switches for MSI

Command-line switches should be present in every setup installer. When it comes to MSI installers, they support command line switches by default.

However, the situation changes with EXE setup installers. There are no universal switches that work for all setup EXEs. These switches change depending on which tool was used to build the installer and how the developer configured it. For example, the /S /SILENT /QUIET /Q -silent -unattended are all examples of switches that instruct an unattended installation of a setup.

Here’s a common MSI install command line that uses install switches:

msiexec /i appname.msi REBOOT=ReallySuppress /silent

In this install switch, this is what each part of the code does:

/i: Instructs install operation
REBOOT=ReallySuppress instructs installer not to ask for a reboot
/silent : Install the app silently.

Installation switches for EXE

Now, different from MSI installers where you can easily locate the correct command-line switches, setup.exe installers require a different approach.

Traditionally, for most of the setup exes, the /help or /? will display a list with the supported command-line switches.

Example, we’ll find the installation switches for Telegram app.

Open cmd or PowerShell then navigate to the folder that contain the setup file.

C:\Users\admin\Desktop\setup>tsetup-x64.4.2.0.exe /help

Note Note: There are some cases where the help commands will not return anything, but some silent parameters are accepted (try using /q or /s directly). You just need to use other methods to find those supported parameters.