Ok guys any idea how i may go about creating an answers file for an unattended install for say WinAmp?
So far all my research points to is doing an unattended install for windows or some other OS. What I want to do is create an unattended install for a 3rd party software. Are there tools to do this? Or is unattended install for 3rd party software just a pipe dream?
AFAIK, it's just a pipe dream for software that doesn't provide you with a mechanism in the installer to do one.
If you have a macro utility, you could record the mouse and key presses you want for the install and automate it that way though. Try some of these
If the application doesn't support the unattended install, some information can be found at http://unattended.sourceforge.net/installers.php, in the section "If all else fails" - i.e. it's possible to install manually and repackage to make a silent installer. It can be messy, but most of the time it works.
The term you should be googling is "silent install" rather than "unattended install".
Most likely you're looking for MSI based installation which can be silently installed by
MSIEXEC /I file.msi /QUIET
For non-MSI installs, you can either repackage them or follow the documentation for the specific product.
Virtually any software company will be able to provide you with the instructions for unattended installations of their product, best practice would suggest contact the vendor first before trying your own approach. Your "homegrown" solution might not be tested or supported and may provide problems down the track.
Last for WinAmp I'm not sure about silent installs of this, I think they use a non-MSI format so my instructions won't help much :)
http://unattended.sourceforge.net/installers.php (and its wiki) is an excellent resource, as already mentioned. http://www.appdeploy.com/packages/ is another excellent site, as is the WPKG wiki.