Updating WSI and MSI from external application

have the same format as MSI files do. They just have "extra" tables inserted by wise, but have no file stream / injected files. If you have functions that work on MSI files, these should also work on WSI files. Try opening a WSI file with Orca, and you will see what I mean. As for compiling the WSI to a MSI file, you can use the (COM) Objects that are exposed by the Wise Package Studio Toolsets. Have a look in the (I think, been a while since I have looked, but there are examples for VB and C#) Help folder in the installation directory of Wise Packaging Studio.

Cheers
Phil

If the (source) file structure is static, (as also the number of resources to be installed), I would use the Wise automation interface to "recompile" the project file. It will automatically replace older files with newer ones, and create the MSI. You would only have to make sure that the GUIDS / versioning are updated to ensure that the resulting package will be an "Update" package. Alternativly you could also with automation create a patch (if required).

If you do go the hard way (i.e. directly editing the MSI file) then you will (eventually) get inconsistancies between your WSI project file, and the MSI file that may not be easy to identify. Also directly editing the cab file, and file table you would also need to ensure that hash values are consistant with files that contain no versioning (at that's just off the top of my head, I'd have to sit down and have a think to see if there is anything else that would nned to be taken into consideration)

Cheers
Phil

If all you're doing is updating the file, you can just compile. Wise will pick up the updated file and write the appropriate changes to the relevant tables in the target MSI.

How polite. LOL...

Basically I do it like this in vbscript:

Set objWfWI = CreateObject("Wfwi.Document" )
objWFWI.Open(YourwsiProject)
objWFWI.SetSilent      ' optional
' regenerate the Package Code (should always be done)
' Create a GUID
Set TypeLib = CreateObject("Scriptlet.TypeLib" ) : CheckErrorr
NewGUID = Left(TypeLib.Guid, len(TypeLib.Guid)-2)
Set TypeLib = Nothing
Set tbl = objWFWI.WTables("Summary")
Set row = tbl.WRows.Row("Package Code")
If (Nothing <> row) Then
    row("Value") = NewGUID
End If
' Do some other table updating stuff, e.g. update version, date and build number
' ....
objWFWI.Compile(wsiProject)
' objWFWI.Save(wsiProject)       '  to save the wsi only

You can use the automation interface to build an entire MSI if required, by editing the tables in your source WSI to update information about your files and then compiling to MSI. Do not try to create CAB files yourself unless you understand that the order of files in any cab exactly matches the order of file sequencing in the file table.

It's actually not that difficult to do, just tedious, as there is no "intelligence" in the automation interface, so if you add a component, for example, you will need to generate the GUID, add it to the FeatureComponents table, and make sure you fill in all the relevant columns.

Adding a file will require you to find a component to specify as the container for the file, and then you will need to find the next sequence number in the file table to allocate to your file. This usually means scanning through the existing table entries, so you will probably end up writing a few functions to do these repetitive tasks for you.