Pidgin Universal Chat Client MSI available for download here: Version 2.7.3
I see some people on the net looking for a Pidgin MSI (as have I but I was left wanting). Pidgin is a “Universal Chat Client” allowing a user to use one program to communicate with many types of chat gateways like MSN Messenger (Now called “Windows Live Messenger”, Yahoo Messenger, AIM, GChat, etc. What’s also nice about Pidgin is that your typical chat client like MSN Messenger will have advertisements embedded into them but Pidgin doesn’t have them!
Side note:
Another INTERESTING tid bit is that the word “Pidgin” doesn’t have anything to do with the bird and it’s NOT misspelled.
“Pidgin…is a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two or more groups that do not have a language in common, in situations such as trade, or where both groups speak languages different to the language of the country in which they reside (but there is no common language between the groups)” Source: Pidgin Wikipedia
Although the Pidgin website doesn’t mention why they called their application Pidgin (and not Pigeon like the bird / fowl) is probably because of that very meaning, it has to be right? It enables one program to communicate with all those networks! It’s an even more brilliant name once you know what Pidgin means isn’t it?
Back to business:
I used a program called WinINSTALL LE, although it’s not a single file MSI it does the trick! It’s likely not a single file MSI because I used the free LE version of their product, not the professional version.
* Warning * – although this MSI works for me, if it doesn’t work for you I might be able to help but I make no guarantees.
Now that my warning is out of the way, here’s what you’ve been googling for, get it here —>
Extract the files to a network share, make your Group Policy, point it at the MSI and happy chatting. Let me know if it works for you too! Friendly command line installation:
msiexec /i Pidgin-2.7.msi /qn
One last thing – to anyone asking, “Why would an organization push out a chat client to their end users, that’s crazy!!!” . Note that I agree in most organizations it’s crazy BUT for some organizations like Colleges, Universities, geographically dispersed organizations, virtual office organizations, etc who foster collaborative efforts within their corporate culture chat clients serve a purpose and is needed. Heck, I needed it and if you need it, it’s possible to kill several birds (sorry Pidgin) with one MSI.
!!!!!!!!!! Update !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!! Update !!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!! Update !!!!!!!!!
If you’re using my MSI I’ve noticed an interesting issue. The prior installation gets left behind and the new installation does not get “uninstalled” by the new version. If you find yourself with multiple instances of my installer in your “Add / Remove Programs” you need to run these commands. Although the new versions don’t get affected by previous installations being there it’s nice to keep things tidy!
1 – Make a batch file with the below content and name it “pidginuninst.bat” (the 2.6.6 zip has a bat file ready to go and it also includes MSIzap for you, make sure to edit the bat file so it fits into your environment).
2- Download my MSIzap from Microsoft and drop the contents in your Pidgin folder on your network share!
3 – Edit the commands below for your environment!
4- I’d possibly make an Active Directory Group Policy or a for loop to push this out and in the future include the command from the batch file to zap the previous installation after the new installation gets done!
* For loop example that schedules a task at 3:45am to uninstall old Pidgin versions: “for /f %i in (c:\temp\pcs.txt) do at \\%i 03:45 “\\yourserver\yourshare\PidginDirectory\pidginuninst.bat”
5 – If you’re really slick you could use an email sending vbscript to notify you via email when each workstation is done or what might even be better, store your log in a central location for later review instead of storing them locally in a temp directory. You’d also want to echo the computer name for the log file name like this: >> “\\yourservershare\yourshare\%computername%.log” and you can use it again in the future.
* All this should give you a good idea of what to do, you can slice and dice this in many ways. If you have questions just ask!
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:: Pidgin uninstall cleanup from prior versions that didn’t get cleaned up
:: by installing a new version with a custom MSI!
cd \
c:
echo %time% Uninstalling Pidgin 2.6.3 >> c:\temp\Pidginuninst.log
:: Comment – this should point to Pidgin MSI version 2.6.3
\\yourserver\yourshare\PidginDirectory\msizap T! “\\yourservers\yourshare\PidginDirectory\Pidgin.msi” >> c:\temp\Pidginuninst.log
echo %time% Uninstalling Pidgin 2.6.4 >> c:\temp\Pidginuninst.log
:: Comment – this should point to Pidgin MSI version 2.6.4
\\yourserver\yourshare\PidginDirectory\msizap T! “\\yourservers\yourshare\PidginDirectory\Pidgin.msi” >> c:\temp\Pidginuninst.log
echo %time% Uninstall of previous Pidgin versions complete please check the logs >> c:\temp\Pidginuninst.log
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Hi – I don’t happen to have an MSI only file, I’m not personally sure how to wrap an entire app in an MSI only. The technique I used is adequate but it’s not as “clean” as I would personally like. It does get the job done. Uninstalling it with MSIzap is also a bit dirty but again, it gets the job done and in the end it works well enough. I know there are products to wrap apps in a single MSI file like the one I’m using but you have to pay for it and the organization I was creating these for probably wasn’t going to pay for it.
Also – Pidgin does have a silent install command line switch so in theory you could push out Pidgin silently via a computer startup script. With the MSI though I haven’t found the need to do that.
Lastly – I haven’t kept up with the latest version so I will try and include that on my site shortly. The MSI I offer is useful enough and LOTS of people have downloaded it. It’s one of my more popular posts and downloads. The people at Pidgin offer a great chat client and they’re always improving it but for some reason they don’t want to offer a Pidgin MSI installer because they say you can do it. In my opinion it seems for Pidgin not to offer an MSI if their user base is asking for it and CLEARLY THEY ARE! :)
Hi,
this helped me – thanks. Do you have also the actual version of pidgin as msi-file?
Thanks a lot,
Ralf