Software Deployment

It sounds like some research into Windows Installer might be useful, too.

I'd say, almost without question, that the EXE extracts and runs an MSI anyway. When you run the EXE, look in your %TEMP% folder, having first ensured that you have Explorer set to show hidden files.

As a general rule, you should NEVER re-package MSIs. If the above proves true, you will find an MSI in %TEMP%. Copy it somewhere, rename it with a sensible name and use it to install the package. Your client's requirement for a silent install is easily satisfied by adding a command-line argument to the installer:

... MSIExec /I [path_to_and_name_of_MSI] /QN

If you want to find a list of installed services, look below HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services. Not all of the services shown will appear in the 'Services' Control Panel applet, because there is no reason for them to be there: many will be system services, for which there is no UI. As another general rule, services whose 'Type' value is '1' are system services and won't appear in the applet's list.

Can I politely suggest that you do some research into Windows services? The 'services' file has absolutely NOTHING to do with them. Sure, the header shows:

# <service name> <port number>/<protocol> [aliases...] [#<comment>] but the file is simply a list of ports connected with network protocols (actually, almost exclusively TCP).

Thanx for ur reply and the info provided. Being new to all these things it's of great help.
But still i am unable to find out the file in question or where to tweak around for this problem. Also this exe installs silently without any user interface. So, for time being my problem is solved as the client doesnot want an MSI for it owing to its silent behavior. Wanted to find it;out of curiosity where does these services gets listed up.

Thanx for the detailed picture of such an scenario.
I checked the s/w thoroughly, it doesnot contains any MSI. Its a pure setup and the setup installs silently in a mouse click.
Also HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services key is present in my msi as well. I took a snapshot using tools other than Adminstudio. But the files captured were almost same.
The type value is 272.
Still no idea why this msi failed to run the service.
Will let you know if i get something.

Most captures which include a service are unlikely to add the necessary table entries to start that service. Either look into the ServiceControl table details in MSI.CHM which will have been installed by your authoring tool or use that tool's UI into services.