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Authoring Secured Installations MSI Special Tips , Adherence to the following guidelines when authoring a Windows Installer package helps maintain a secure environment during installation: Administrators should install managed applications into a target installation folder for which non-admin users do not have change or modify privileges. Make any property set by the user a public […]

What is WMI? MSI Windows Managed Instrumentation (WMI) is acronym for Windows Management Instrumentation. WMI is a new management technology allowing scripts to monitor and control managed resources throughout the network. Resources include hard drives, file systems, operating system settings, processes, services, shares, registry settings, networking components, event logs, users, and groups. WMI is built […]

What is Localization? (MSI Localizing a Windows Installer Package ) MSI Localizing a Windows Installer Package ,the process of making a software product linguistically and culturally appropriate for use in a different country or region and its language is called localization. This helps cut costs and speeds up the localization process. In addition to adapting […]

What is bootstrapping? MSI Windows Installer Bootstrapping , A setup application Instmsi.exe is available with the Windows Installer SDK that contains all logic and functionality to install Windows Installer When bootstrapping is used? MSI Windows Installer Bootstrapping , Currently every installation that attempts to use the Windows® Installer begins by checking whether the installer is […]

MSI System Tables The System tables contain the metadata for the Installer database—that is, they are the tables that describe the tables in the database. There are five system tables as described below: The _Tables Table: (MSI System Tables) What is a _Tables Table? The _Tables table lists all of the tables in the Installer […]

MSI User Interface Tables ,Like everything else about the Installer, the user interface is contained in a set of tables. Perhaps the easiest way to think about it is that the Installer stores all the properties needed to create dialogs and controls without providing any visual designer for those objects. Dialog Table: (MSI User Interface […]

MSI Installation Procedure Tables group includes tables that control the sequence of actions during an installation. This group includes following tables: The InstallUISequence Table: (MSI Installation Procedure Tables) What is an InstallUISequence table? The InstallUISequence table lists actions that are executed when the top-level INSTALL action is executed and the internal user interface level is […]

MSI ODBC Tables ,The Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) tables group consists of five tables that allow the Installer to install ODBC drivers and data sources. The ODBCDataSource Table: What is a ODBCDataSource table? The ODBCDataSource table lists the ODBC data sources in the installation. This table has following columns: DataSource: This is an arbitrary string […]

MSI Registry Tables What is a Registry table? This table holds all the miscellaneous (that is, not directly related to COM or COM+) information that the Installer needs to write to the Registry to install the application. The Registry table is used by the WriteRegistryValues action. This table contains the following columns: Registry: This column […]

MSI Advertising Tables Basically the Installer developers discourage the use of self-registration. Instead, Registry entries should be made through these tables. While there is one table that simply writes Registry keys (the Registry table), there are others that are more specialized. These specialized tables enable the Installer to make full use of COM, support advertising […]