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mornig All,

I am trying to edit an MSI package using ORCA, this is quite a good tool, but does any one know of any more good MSI editing tools?

Cheers

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I'm not sure this is what you want, but it is quite simple to write a VBS or JS script that instantiates the respective COM classes to deal with MSI packages. I've been using that for example to edit .pcp (patch creation properties) and .msi files to automate some final steps in package creation. But I'm not sure whether this is a deployment question or whether you are authoring the MSIs ... (thus my answer in a comment ;)) – STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED Mar 3 '11 at 3:15
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3 Answers

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ORCA is "offical" but quite lacking in features. We use a collection of tools for our packaging needs. Some of these tool go far beyond just editing an MSI.

  1. Super ORCA
  2. WiX
  3. Advanced Installer
  4. Universal Extractor
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Brillaint thanks for that. will gives these tools a try – Cyper Jun 22 '10 at 11:56
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up vote 4 down vote

I just found InstEd, a free MSI editor. Looks OK.

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+1, indeed this is one of the more convenient ones. – STATUS_ACCESS_DENIED Mar 3 '11 at 3:13
InstEdit is phenomenal. Being able to update an MSI or create a transform, leaving the original intact, is incredibly handy when building packages for SCCM deployment. – peelman Mar 3 '11 at 3:55
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up vote 1 down vote

If you need to make any substantial changes to an MSI file the best tools are Installshield and Wise, hands down. An MSI file is a database, and it is full of tables with referential integrity. A change in one table quickly cascades to a number of other table, and it is quite hairy to decode this yourself, and not very time efficient.

Getting the cheapest version from Altiris or Flexera would be a great way to ensure modification of MSI files is less error-prone and easier. For system administration I greatly prefer Wise from Altiris. It is targeting system administrators rather than developers, and is much less buggy.

I am not sure what the price is for these editors. They tend to be bogged down in more and more large corporation junk so you can't purchase the simple editor, but get a whole lot of junk along with it. I see Symantec has purchased Altiris.

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