23.4 Extracting Files from Windows Installer Packages with Less MSIérables
Microsoft’s Windows Installer is the de facto standard installation system for Windows. A Windows Installer package usually comes in a file with an .msi extension and contains a database of installation information as well as a set of components to be installed. While automatic uninstall, rollback facilities, advertisement banners, and the like are compelling features for a sophisticated installation system, it is not always desirable or feasible to run a Windows Installer package.
You might want to work around Windows Installer simply to avoid having to install and uninstall an application each day to get a couple of files out of the most recent build, or you may encounter an installer that refuses to install because of a falsely reported dependency. Sometimes you may just want to view files or attributes in an installer file, or unzip the contents.
Scott Willeke has written a utility to allow you to do just that. With Less MSIérables, you can view and extract the contents of Windows Installer files.
| |
|---|---|
Tool | Less MSIérables |
Version covered | 1.0.5.0 |
Home page | |
Power Tools page | |
Summary | A tool to view and extract the contents of Windows Installer files |
License type | Freeware |
Online resources | Author’s blog |
Supported Frameworks | .NET ... |
Get Windows Developer Power Tools now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
