Tucasi School Cash Office - Silent Install Switch?

[LeMarchand]

Has anyone got a trick to getting this to install silently? /S doesn't work and I can't extract an msi.

 

I've seem suggestions that you can just copy the installed folder but I'm worried that this may destroy letters on the target machine.

[DavR]

Unless it's changed dramatically, SCO doesn't have an underlying MSI. Nor any silent install switches. Due to the program being from The Ark. 

 

We've retired it now, but used to redirect the letters folder to a network share, which if you've only got a handful of machines, should be achievable by copying all the letters into one folder.

 

I then used to make my own MSI files by updating one PC and rolling that C:\SCO directory into an MSI, plus registering a few things in C:\Windows (second bit strictly only necessary for new installs). Sounds fiddly, but if you've any experience of creating files-only MSIs it's pretty straightforward.

[LeMarchand]

Thanks. I really ought to move the letters to a network share anyway. Alas, some of the rest seems a bit complex for my little brain. It's not like it takes long to to (only 3 or 4 almost adjacent machines in each of the 2 schools who are clinging on to it) - it just bugs me every few weeks. So much for their "cloud" product!

[DavR]

LOL @ cloud product.

Somehow they managed to make some of the data cloud based, but still require a local server and local software which needs updating quarterly. The worst of both worlds!

[krobin]

There is an MSI, you just need to ask them to send it to you everytime they update (some kind of mailing list?).

I get a regular email from Christophe Malapris with the latest update if it helps.

But yes... I can not wait to get rid of this fake cloud product in favour of Arbor Pay.

[LeMarchand]

10 minutes ago, krobin said:

There is an MSI, you just need to ask them to send it to you everytime they update (some kind of mailing list?).

I get a regular email from Christophe Malapris with the latest update if it helps.

But yes... I can not wait to get rid of this fake cloud product in favour of Arbor Pay.

 

 

Why the heck don't they just put it up with the exe? Unfortunately only one of my three sites has gone over to Arbor.

[DavR]

1 hour ago, krobin said:

I can not wait to get rid of this fake cloud product in favour of Arbor Pay.

 

You say that, we had nothing but complaints from our office staff when we moved to Arbor Pay 😂 Not that anyone seriously lamented the loss of SCO.

 

I think one of the big problems was, unless you get Payments Plus, you don't get a storefront, so no "products" to buy, just basic invoicing. So that was a bit of a change in understanding.

 

Even now though, charging Nursery and Clubs are a PITA.

[LeMarchand]

17 hours ago, krobin said:

I get a regular email from Christophe Malapris with the latest update if it helps.

 

That's who replied to me. Let's see what happens next update! If I don't hear back the URL pattern looks like it should just work by changing the version.

[krobin]

16 hours ago, DavR said:

 

You say that, we had nothing but complaints from our office staff when we moved to Arbor Pay 😂 Not that anyone seriously lamented the loss of SCO.

 

I think one of the big problems was, unless you get Payments Plus, you don't get a storefront, so no "products" to buy, just basic invoicing. So that was a bit of a change in understanding.

 

Even now though, charging Nursery and Clubs are a PITA.

We have the Perform tier, so we would have the store... my problem is getting Finance to say goodbye to SCO.
Any other issues I should be aware of out of interest?

[LeMarchand]

1 hour ago, LeMarchand said:

 

That's who replied to me. Let's see what happens next update! If I don't hear back the URL pattern looks like it should just work by changing the version.

 

Well, I appear to be in the gang. 2.6.0.27.

[DavR]

1 hour ago, krobin said:

We have the Perform tier, so we would have the store... my problem is getting Finance to say goodbye to SCO.
Any other issues I should be aware of out of interest?

 

Yeah, no-one wants to change their ways until they're forced to, do they! Although you'd hope finance would see the benefit of dropping an unnecessary extra annual contract.

 

If you've got the Storefront option, that probably makes life much easier.

 

I'll PM you re our experience!

[Theldron]

 

On 21/04/2026 at 10:34, DavR said:

Unless it's changed dramatically, SCO doesn't have an underlying MSI. Nor any silent install switches. Due to the program being from The Ark. 

 

We've retired it now, but used to redirect the letters folder to a network share, which if you've only got a handful of machines, should be achievable by copying all the letters into one folder.

 

I then used to make my own MSI files by updating one PC and rolling that C:\SCO directory into an MSI, plus registering a few things in C:\Windows (second bit strictly only necessary for new installs). Sounds fiddly, but if you've any experience of creating files-only MSIs it's pretty straightforward.

Hi @DaveR, hope you are well. I'm Theldron2.0 from the other post (found the login for my old account)

 

I am still waiting on Tucasi to come back to me re the MSI.

 

Do you remember what things you had to register in C:\Windows please? Also I have copied the C:\SCO directory to another computer, but the username field is just greyed out and can't be touched, any ideas please?

 

I am sure I have missed something or not copied something. I have copied it into Program Files\Sco as I don't like things on the root of C. Not sure if that is the reason.

 

Thanks

Edited July 9 by Theldron

[DavR]

When I was creating my own SCO MSI, I had to drop the following files in C:\Windows\System32 and register them. You should be able to lift these from a PC that's had a manual SCO install.

 

 

I've never tried moving the SCO folder into Program Files, it depends how many bits of it are hard coded to C:\SCO install location. However, I'm pretty sure you'll need to update the SCO\SCO.ini file with the new location if you've moved it from the default. That's the only real config file that I remember.

 

IIRC, SCO also needed MS Visual C++ 2010 x86 installed as a dependency, although dunno if it still does.