Wireshark MSI Installers

Wireshark’s MSI installers make it straightforward to push the tool out via SCCM, WDS, or Group Policy rather than running the interactive installer by hand on every machine. Getting the Installer Download the current 32-bit and 64-bit MSI installers directly from Wireshark’s official download page rather than a third-party mirror — because Wireshark captures raw […]

By Andrew Armstrong • 2 min read

Wireshark’s MSI installers make it straightforward to push the tool out via SCCM, WDS, or Group Policy rather than running the interactive installer by hand on every machine.

Getting the Installer

Download the current 32-bit and 64-bit MSI installers directly from Wireshark’s official download page rather than a third-party mirror — because Wireshark captures raw network traffic and installs a packet-capture driver (Npcap) with elevated privileges, it’s worth being especially deliberate about only ever installing it from Wireshark’s own verified releases.

Silent Installation

msiexec.exe /i "Wireshark-win64-x.x.x.msi" /q /norestart

Automated but Visible to the End User

msiexec.exe /i "Wireshark-win64-x.x.x.msi" /passive /norestart

Where: msiexec.exe launches the Windows Installer engine, /i specifies an install, /q runs fully silent, /passive shows a basic progress UI without requiring interaction, and /norestart suppresses an automatic reboot so SCCM (or you) can manage that separately.

The Npcap Catch (Updated for 2026)

Worth knowing before you script this at scale: Wireshark’s own documentation confirms the /S-style silent switches above do not silently install Npcap, the packet-capture driver Wireshark needs to actually capture traffic. Free Npcap installers aren’t scriptable for unattended deployment — there’s no documented MSI property like NPCAP_OEM=yes that unlocks a silent sub-install on the free build. Genuinely silent Npcap deployment (the kind you’d want for a fleet-wide SCCM push) requires purchasing an Npcap OEM licence, which provides a separate npcap-oem.exe installer that does support a /S silent switch. Without that licence, plan on either pre-staging Npcap through a one-time manual click-through per machine, or accepting that the Npcap sub-installer will prompt even when the outer Wireshark MSI runs silently.

Npcap vs. the Old WinPcap Driver

If you’re working from an older deployment guide, double-check it isn’t still referencing WinPcap — Wireshark moved to Npcap as its bundled capture driver years ago, and WinPcap itself has been unmaintained for a long time. Any script or answer that still mentions WinPcap install switches is working from outdated guidance and should be updated to Npcap’s own installer behaviour, including the OEM-licence caveat above.

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Andrew Armstrong

Andrew Armstrong is a UK-based IT professional with 26+ years of hands-on experience in Windows, Windows Server, SCCM/ConfigMgr, Active Directory, PowerShell, and enterprise infrastructure.

He founded TechyGeeksHome in 2010 and has published over 1,500 practical guides covering real-world IT problems and solutions. When not solving IT problems,

Andrew develops free Windows utilities including Ultimate Settings Panel, which has been downloaded over 850,000 times.

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