In terms of the files they both yield there is no
difference, but as you say the "XML" that comes with it is the real difference.
I have not tried to rebuild the output from Dark yet as I'm still wondering if I
want to use it at all. The reason I want to do this extract is so that I can
build a patch from an msi that has already been released and was not built in
uncompressed format (I'm not in the siuation where this synario has occured but
I'm planning ahead to our next release). As things stand (assuming candle and
Light with build the output from Dark) :
1) Run dark on the old msi, then rebuild it with
compression turned off
2) Build my new msi that contains the fix with
compression on (as I don't think the patch process will like me giving it the
output from dark to compare with an uncompressed installer built
normally)
3) Extract it with dark, then rebuild it with
compression off
4) Build my patch from the two uncompressed msi's built
from the dark outputted installer rebuilt with no
compression..
if that all works then I'm happy to do it as I can just
automate the whole thing. It may make more sense for msimsp.exe to do this
under the covers so that you can just use two msi installers built with
compression on.... or since msimsp.exe isn't a WIX thing, maybe produce a
wrapper for it that does all this monkey business....and outputs a patch in the
form of an exe file that has the correct commandline switches to call onto
msiexec.exe....
This is basically what I will end up producing, but
it's likely to be a mangled mess of a C++ program.
From: Christopher Painter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 13 June 2006 16:03
To: Simon Topley
Cc: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Extract files from msi (Msiexec, not WIX issue... .)
MSI2XML and Dark are different in that MSI2XML only attempts to transform
MSI schema and data into XML format while Dark attempts to translate MSI
schema/data into an entirely different schema that just happens to be in XML
format.
InstallShield uses MSI2XML ( there is even a credit in the help about ) and
it's been very successful for years. It's very easy to switch back and
forth between Binary and XML project types because the schema is the same.
Only the storage is different.
Simon Topley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Simon Topley <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
I have had limited success with MSI2XML. The latest build seems to have installer realted issues but the build before that is stable. It does extract all teh files (including files desine for the windows and system directory, sadly it names them all by the File ID, I suppose I could go through renaming all of the file ID's to there longnames.. This Highlights another issues for me (this applies to the Admin installers too "msiexec /a"). Both of these methods extract the files into a different directory structure from the one used to construct the msi file. So even if I do get one of these to work I will still have to monkey around with the files before I can use them to build a patch from... I'm starting to think that keeping an uncompressed version of any released installers is the only way to do this patch business.Thanks for the help all the same, if anyone has anything further to add to this, please do...Simon Topley
This open source project MSI2XML does a pretty good job of exporting an MSI database to XML and extracting all of the streams to a subfolder. Once you've done this you can see the CABs that are stored in the MSI and extract your files from them.
From: Christopher Painter [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: 12 June 2006 14:54
To: Simon Topley
Cc: wix-users@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [WiX-users] Extract files from msi (Msiexec, not WIX issue... .)
On 6/12/06, Simon Topley <[EMAIL PROTECTED] > wrote:
Hello all,I know this isn't really a WIX problem, however it must be an issue others have seen. "Msiexec /a" is used to create an administrative installer (i.e uncompressed into folders). This little gem works pretty well for the most part, however it never extracts files destine for the windows or system folder... At first I thought it was because of the old condition of the feature (default being 0 not 1) I've changed that and still only get the "Pfiles" folder out or my msi file...Is there any other way to extract the files from an msi file that anyone knows of?For fun I've included a fragment that adds a file to the windows directory, in case someone spots a fundamental problem :<Fragment Id="fWindowsFiles">
<Directory Id="WindowsFolder" Name="WinFldr">
<Component Id="cHTMLHelpExe" DiskId="1" Guid='B2975E71-5581-4E13-B850-2731A2EFA122' >
<File Id="file1065" Name="hh.exe" src="" />
</Component>
</Directory></Fragment>Kind RegardsSimon Topley
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