Corel currently does not offer a slick way to silently push Painter 2018 on MacOS, and I had to deploy it to a lab over Christmas break.

I’m well aware that what comes next is a very butcher-ey way to do this. I’m definitely open to suggestions for how to clean up my process, but since I didn’t see a guide online, I thought this could possibly be helpful for someone else and could maybe start a discussion.

Anyway, Corel provides a utility called “create_dta” that will create a License key file. The rest of this paragraph is pretty much ripped straight from their documentation. It will generate the key file (PFXX.dta) which you can then push to the machines you have installed Painter 20xx on. It’s important to note each release of Painter has its own version of create_dta. Create_dta takes 2 parameters. The first is the serial number, the second is the location to generate the License Key file.

syntax:

create_dta <SERIALNUMBER> <DESTINATIONPATH>/PFxx.dta

I then used Composer to capture file changes, including placing the dta file into /Library/Preferences/com.corel.Painter2018. I know, I know, don’t use Composer, but it was the only way I could figure out to do the install silently.

After install and licensing, you must register the install per computer and per user by entering the email address associated with the license. I did this by logging in under a set account, entering the email address, and then copying the Registry Plist file from that user’s “Preferences” directory into the directory of every logged in user with this script:

#!/bin/sh
# Get the username of the currently logged in user
loggedInUser=`/bin/ls -l /dev/console | /usr/bin/awk '{ print $3 }'`

mkdir /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.corel.Painter2018
cp /Users/<LicensingAccountNameHere>/Library/Preferences/com.corel.Painter2018/com.corel.Registry.plist /Users/$loggedInUser/Library/Preferences/com.corel.Painter2018/com.corel.Registry.plist

I trigger this script at login per account.

From there, it’s just a matter of scoping and grouping your install the way you’d like it to go.

Here’s my step by step from our documentation, if it helps anyone.

Create the Installer:
1. Create licensing file:
Use the “create_dta” utility. It will generate the key file (PFXX.dta) which you can then push to the machines you have installed Painter 20xx on
NOTE: each release of Painter, has its own version of create_dta.
create_dta takes 2 parameters. The first is the serial number, the second is the location to generate the License Key file.
syntax: create_dta <SERIALNUMBER> <DESTINATIONPATH>
The file must be named “PFxx.dta”
Save the generated file for use in step 3
2. Use Composer to capture file changes:
Run through Painter 2018 Installer process
place DTA file in /Library/Preferences/com.corel.Painter2018
remove unnecessary files captured in Composer process
* save Package

Create Licensing Plist:
1. Open Corel Painter 2018 under <EndUserLogin>
2. At the registration prompt, enter <RegisteredEmail> and submit
3. Copy the following file:
/Users/<EndUserLogin>/Library/Preferences/com.corel.Painter2018/com.corel.Registry.plist
4. Place the copied files into ~/Library/Preferences for each new logged in user
this step currently done via login script