piyushnasa's blog

Merge Modules are nothing but pre compiled libraries of components. When you add Merge module to your package and compile it, the package does not see it as a Merge module, but as a component which was added in it.

There are five properties which are required by every Microsoft installer to identify itself from other MSI.

These properties are required to be present in every MSI.

Self Heal and Repair are two different concepts in Windows Installer which people many times consider to be the same thing, however there is difference in these two.

You can install files to multiple drives using single MSI. You do not require custom actions or scripts to do that. You just need to put some tricks in the directory table. So here it goes...

In any of these installation transactions, viz. initial installation, repair, reinstallation, on-demand installation or patching an MSI, The REINSTALLMODE has an affect on it.

SOURCEDIR property in MSI package refers to the location from where the MSI is installed in the machine. How do we use this property in our package.

This tip is not actually on explaining how to do Application isolation, but to describe a way to do Application isolation of one file by both .local and .manifest in the same MSI.

Packages which need to include or which capture files with a total size exceeding 2 GB, it's necessary to use some tricks. Usually the MSI with cabs compressed outside the MSI allows the maximum size of cab files to be 2 GB.