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Windows Installer Tools

I've been working on the installation program for my book using Windows Installer technology. I use Orca for editing the MSI database and simple scriptlets I've written myself to automate some common tasks. Here you'll find links to useful tools for working with MSI databases directly.

Tools I've Written

New! 24-Dec-2001 izfree Tools for Windows Installer 1.0

Now hosted on SourceForge.net, izfree provides a collection of frequently needed tools when creating installations with Orca as the database editor. izfree provides the following tools:

• creates Windows Installer compatible GUIDs for pasting into Orca when adding information.
• creates a new install project from a collection of templates.
• creates components from a directory hierarchy and add them to your database.
• preview user interface dialogs and clone the dialog and its associated controls for creating new dialogs based on existing dialogs.

New! 8-Nov-2001 ISWI 1.52 Add File to Component Workaround

This is an HTML file hosting some client-side VBScript to use the automation interface to InstallShield for Windows Installer 1.52 to work around a bug in their GUI that makes it impossible to add files to an existing component with an existing path variable when the path variable contains "..".

Installation: Save the target of the link above to your local machine and open the file locally. When prompted if you want to trust ActiveX controls running on the page, click "Yes". (The script instantiates an instance of ISWI via automation.) Instructions are contained on the page.

Tools Written by Others