Super Condensed: Install Orca, get someone else involved to help and go through the raw tables in sequence and then any custom action code. All of this is obvious – if this has happened to you and you have sensitive information in the wild: all you can do is pull back the MSI (from download … Read more
“Intent” We have some problems in deployment that people tell us what they are doing, but not what they are intending. Sometimes this causes us to write elaborate answers that doesn’t answer the question. I hope this is not the case here. Attempted Answer You want to find the exact path to the MSI that … Read more
Self-Repair, Simple & Short Explanation: Why does the MSI installer reconfigure if I delete a file? General WiX / MSI Advice: This self-repair piece was split from the original answer on general MSI problems: How do I avoid common design flaws in my WiX / MSI deployment solution? Short Summary I keep trying to write … Read more
You should be able to use the /quiet or /qn options with msiexec to perform a silent install. MSI packages export public properties, which you can set with the PROPERTY=value syntax on the end of the msiexec parameters. For example, this command installs a package with no UI and no reboot, with a log and … Read more
WiX / MSI Deployment Anti-Patterns There are several deployment anti-patterns often seen in WiX / MSI files. Below is a rough-draft of some of the most common ones. Before going into the problems, on the other hand here is a quick reminder of the things that have made MSI an overall success! (despite its problems). … Read more
UPDATE, Aug.2018, a new and shorter option: How to create windows installer. Focused on summarizing MSI and its major benefits and to list the major tools available (with download links), as well as mentioning some new, trending deployment technologies. I have worked in software development as a release manager, build engineer, setup developer and as … Read more
Microsoft Orca: If you have Visual Studio installed, try searching for Orca-x86_en-us.msi – under Program Files (x86) – and install it. Then find Orca in the start menu. Current path: C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.17763.0\x86 Change version numbers as appropriate About MSI Files Roughly speaking MSI files are COM-structured storage files – essentially a file system … Read more