Software Deployment

Yes. Click 'Cancel' but don't confirm 'Yes' or 'No'. Then look in TEMP. That will get you the embedded MSI but, for your main installer, you'll still need to monitor its start-up.

First you got to be sure whether its a legacy setup or a vendor msi. I suggest you to disable the Windows Installer Service before running the setup.exe. If the application installs, then its a legacy setup. If it fails, then you have a vendor msi which you will find in the Temp folder.

Looks like there is an MSI .But i am not able to find it in temp folder and also there is an MSI that appears in program files folder but disppears as installation proceeds. Not able to capture it .
After installation and when application is launched i get a message saying :
"This application has failed to start because the application configuration is incorrect.Reinstalling the application might fix this issue "

Can some one suggets on how to package ?

Regards,
Sanju

please follow these steps.
1. Right click on the setup.exe if winzip is installed on your system then it will give option to unzip, unzip it. Sometimes you will have loose files with and msi file within it copy all those files and genrate a transform and incorprate all the standards.
2. If you dont have option to unzip it then install the setup.exe goto run and type c:\windows\installer u will find all the msi's installed on you machine.
3. Sort by date u have installed and copy to the safe location.
4. no take a clean build and install this msi and check if it installs properly or no if yes the genrate a transform and incorprate all the standards.

Cheers,
Raj

Raj, No offence but if you're going to respond to posts, it's probably best that you do so from a position of knowledge. The MSIs which get posted to the Installer folder will be stripped-down versions of the original. Those which use embedded CABs will have those CABs removed, for example. Check out MSDN for full details of what cached MSIs contain.

If a set-up stub contains an MSI, it will either drop it into the user's %TEMP% folder, the system TEMP folder or, if it was built using WinZip or similar, into a folder of the user's choice.

Yes you are right VBScab. I Apologize for the same to all.

So which is the best method to find that MSI ?
The temp folder is not possible because there is no MSI i can see .

If there's no MSI, then the set-up isn't MSI-based. What led you to assert that there was (post # 6)?

If it were me, I'd go back and start again, this time following the fool-proof VBScab method of ensuring that your package matches exactly what the vendor's set-up does. That is:

- run your MSI
- run a lightweight snapshot tool like In Control or InstallWatch
- take a 'Before' snapshot
- remove any flags which indicate that the product is installed (so that the vendor's set-up is fooled into performing a full install as opposed to a re-install/repair)
- run the vendor's set-up
- take an 'After' snapshot
- examine the snapshot tool's output and add any relevant changes to your package.
- repeat until you get no relevant changes
- test

When an empty MSI is created and i call the setup.exe file through commandline in MSI .I get a message Error :1722

Any advice on how this can be avoided ?

No, no, no, NO! That isn't want I meant. I thought the meaning was obvious, given that you mention in post #1 that you had captured the EXE.

Use your authoring tool to capture what the vendor's set-up into a project file (WSI in Wise, ISM in InstallShield). Then add any additional changes you might want, finally compiling your project into an MSI. Then follow the steps I outlined so that you end up with an exact copy of what the vendor's EXE does, except in MSI form.

Is it a common application?
If it is then I may want to try that too.

Hi ,

I have successfully created a empty MSI and created two setup.iss files, one for install and another for unisntall.I have called the setup.iss by using the command line :"[SourceDir]Windows Client\setup.exe" /s /f1"[SourceDir]Windows Client\setup.iss" in the MSI.
However when we use the same commandline for uninstall.iss we get a user interface asking to manually check remove and then proceed to uninstall the application .

Can you provide me a commandline to uninstall this application without having a user interface ?

Sanju

As per http://itninja.com/question/gnu,-freeware-and-shareware-programs-to-cloning8931, my crystal ball is STILL fogged up.

How on earth would anyone know the answer to that question when you don't specify which application it is!

Having said that, since you have chosen the lazy option of wrapping the original stub instead of perservering with a capture, from what little I remember about legacy InstallShield set ups, you can record an answer file for uninstall as well as install. IIRC, it works by recording the dialog name and the state of the control values on that dialog.

Sorry , the application is content manager ondemand 32. Wraping the MSI option is shocen since there was no possibility to capture teh hidden MSI and make a transform .

However as i have told you in my earlier note i have created a record file for install as well as uninstall. I need a commandline to use this recorded uninstall file to remove the application silently without any user interface .

You *did* tell us that. Please accept my apologies.

It's not exactly what one would call a mainstream application so, if the recorded answer file isn't providing values for all the dialog's controls, you will need to speak to the vendor, I think.

EDIT:
I see the vendor is IBM. Best of luck with that...

Hi Sanju,

Did you try the /a option? It causes Setup.exe to perform an administrative installation. An administrative installation copies (and uncompresses) your data files to a directory specified by the user, but it does not create shortcuts, register COM servers, or create an uninstallation log.

You could try the UniExtract utility available for download at
http://legroom.net/scripts/download.php?file=uniextract16
I've had pretty good luck using this to extract .msi's from most InstallShield setup.exe's

- Remember that some InstallShield stubs extract and execute an MSI so you may have inadvertently captured an MSI, which will inevitably cause problems.
- If it's not MSI-based, maybe something wasn't captured. Did you by chance 'Exclude' something you shouldn't have? Run your favoured process/file/registry monitor as you launch the application. Anything else is pure guesswork.

Hi ,

Thanks for the reply . Well , when the exe was installed .No MSI was extracted in the temp folder .But while exe installs i see some MSI is being installed as shows installing .msi
Not sure what MSI is that and why it is not getting extracted or captured .

Any suggestions ?

Sanju