Today I needed to create a silent install for IBM WebSphere MQ, in my case version 6.0.2.10.

I started by reading IBM’s documentation: WebSphere MQ Unattendend (silent) Installation which desribes that we can create a response file using the SAVEINI parameter.

So I recorded a response file and tested the install using the USEINI parameter as indicated by the documentation.

However the installation failed producing only this error message:

One or more problems occured. Review the trace and/or log file for details. (AMQ4739)

The MSI log file only indicates:

MSI (s) (F0:64) [16:29:07:460]: Product: IBM WebSphere MQ — Installation operation failed.

Which is not very helpfull either but after some searching I found that the installer creates another log file in %temp% called amqt0001.log and there I found:

16:40:10 MQCA iwiInstallInitSec info: ***Property REMOVEFEATURES is set to ”; unacceptable for silent installation

So I looked at the response file that was generated and it has this line:

;REMOVEFEATURES=”yes”

I looked up what the documentation says about REMOVEFEATURES:

Must be set to 1 or yes for a silent installation if Internet Gateway, Web Administration Server, or SupportPac MA88 are installed, or the installation fails.

Well that last line is funny but indeed after removing the semicolon (;) the installation was successfull.