Hi ..

I would say a good 80% of all my apps are in .msi format, And i would love to be able to silently install them all with a batch file. One of my problems is that I never use %ProgramFiles% which is the default location for most installers. I looked up .msi switches but couldn't find a switch to set my prefered install location. I also couldn't find a switch to include a Serial number.

A Little more reading and I stumbled upon the concept of MST (Transfrom) Files. They seem to be just what I am looking for, a way to modify the install without having to modify the actual .msi ... That's where things go South for me. I can't seem to find any information on how to create an MST. After about an hour of searching, I came across a free program called 'Installtailor' but the link was dead and apparently has ended up being incorporated into Wise Installer.

I guess the real question for me is, What do I use to create MST files? Can anyone give me any recomendations?

Thanks ..

Hi,

just try google using "creating MST files". I quickly found these links:

http://www.itworld.com/App/60/NWW010430119954/

and here is a second link directly to this forum and it took me 5 sec dude :-D

http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=18860

which reminds me I should also take a look

Edited August 25, 200620 yr by embe

I've already visited that link http://www.msfn.org/board/index.php?showtopic=18860 But didn't get much out of it since Mazin was talking mainly about modifying the actual MSI. Your first link however is interesting. I enjoyed reading the comparison between Wise and Installshield.

Maybe one day when I've saved a few thousand dollars, I can buy these programs and continue with my dream of applying Transforms to my .msi files ...

Thanks for the reply ...

to make MST files use Wise InstallTailor. With it, you run your msi installer, choose options, install location and at the end, it makes a mst file that you must use this way: setup.msi TRANSFORMS=setup.mst /qb /norestart

to get it, search google, i dont remember where i found it. its free.

to modify installer for deleting/adding custom actions or other things you must use something like Installer Design Studio, Wise Package or InstallShield...

http://209.104.132.210/InstallTailor_6_0.msi

@dobbelina ..

Thank you very much for that link, I was under the impression that 'Installtailor' was no longer a seperate application and was now only available in 'Wise Package Studio'. I can now MST to my heart's content.

Can I use 'Orca' to edit MST files? or does it have to be one of many pretty expensive commercial apps?

Thanks again for all the help everyone ..

That looks like a handy tool, thanks very much

@rez

you can use orca, but you need to know what you are looking for inside the msi setup tables, if not, you can loose yourself very quickly in there

try using some searches to find installshield references or microsoft so you can learn some parts of an msi installer table.