William Shallum

Getting the Google Apps installer from the old Google Pack

Posted Nov 8 2011, 16:11 by William Shallum [updated Oct 2 2014, 08:15]

The Google Pack (before it was killed) used to have a “Google Apps” option to install desktop icons and programs for Google Mail, Calendar, and Docs. Google Apps (for Domains) users can download it from this URL: http://dl.google.com/tag/s/ap=example.com/googlewebapps/en/googleappsstandalonesetuptagged.exe (replace example.com with your own domain; this link also available in the domain control panel). The regular installer for Google services (no domain) no longer seems to be available publicly.

I wanted to save a copy of this installer so I used the app ID used by Google Updater to query the update servers:

POST https://tools.google.com/service/update2 HTTP/1.1
Host: tools.google.com
Content-Type: application/xml
Content-Length: 462

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<request protocol="3.0" version="1.3.23.0" ismachine="0" sessionid="{3572ed7c-664f-41d7-8d27-f3ec6a96162f}" requestid="{69487f3e-b41a-4870-a76b-1a5987836db7}">
  <os platform="win" version="6.1" sp="" arch="x64"/>
  <app appid="{C4D65027-B96A-49A5-B13C-4E7FAFD2FB7B}" version="" nextversion="" lang="en" brand="GPCK" client="someclientid">
    <updatecheck/>
  </app>
</request>

The response contains the URL of the MSI installer (formatted for readability).

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<response protocol="3.0" server="prod">
<daystart elapsed_seconds="28560"/>
<app appid="{C4D65027-B96A-49A5-B13C-4E7FAFD2FB7B}" status="ok">
<updatecheck status="ok">
<urls>
<url codebase="http://dl.google.com/googlewebapps/1.2.279.2381/"/>
</urls>
<manifest>
<packages>
<package hash="uwFdU9+9b4B+Oj7c+8VXUZBpl+8=" name="googleapps.msi" required="true" size="333824"/>
</packages>
<actions>
<action event="install" needsadmin="true" run="googleapps.msi"/>
<action event="postinstall"/>
</actions>
</manifest>
</updatecheck>
</app>
</response>

Piecing it together, the URL of the MSI installer is http://dl.google.com/googlewebapps/1.2.279.2381/googleapps.msi. Hope this helps someone.

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