Software Deployment

Hi Claudio,

I suspect the .msi and the exe are related to each other, in the sense that you may not be able to install the .msi file independently as it may call the setup.exe and vice versa. If this is the case then create a verbose log of the installation of the .msi and you will find out that there will be a couple of custom actions failing. Comment out these CAs and then you can use either of the .mst depending upon which language is the application to be repackaged for.

* I recommend you make customizations on the vendor supplied transform file (.mst)

Don't use 1033.mst! Just use Wise to do a transform for the bits that you want.

Hi Ian,

Can you please tell me why should'nt one make changes to the vendor suppplied mst and rename the file as a your own? In this way you not only incorporate the vendor's transform but also introduce your own customizations. So at the end I am applying only one transform rather than using 1033.mst and custom.mst (as in your example) I have been following this practice for quite sometime and would want to change if it is not correct.

Thanks

Going on the information givin I would suggest the following.

I imagine the .mst files provided with the .msi are most likely 1033.mst, 1034.mst and things like that.
If you need to customize for your environment I would create a new .mst for your vendor.msi using your favorite repackaging tool.

Is the setup.exe an installshield setup? Is the .msi spawned from running that? Can give you more information if you can provide us with more details of what your working with.

Yes! you are right!
The .mst provided with the .msi are 1033.mst, 1034.mst, etc. and I need to customize it for my environement.
I use Wise Package Studio 7, this is the standard tool to package everything; but I don't know how to do for create a new .mst using the existing .mst
I think the application was created on Installshield, but I can't use this tools.
Can you help me?

There are a couple ways you can do it at this point. You have your msi and you have the .mst's. The .mst's you have now are language versions. Assuming you will be packaging in english you will be using the 1033.mst.

Using WPS 7.x you will be using the 'Install Tailor' to accomplish your goal. You can also ignore the 1033.mst and create your own whatever.mst

That will do what you need it to do. Remeber the <F1> will give you a lot of help in WPS

* I recommend you make customizations on the vendor supplied transform file (.mst) Well don't! That's ridiculous advice.

@OP, Use the Wise tool InstallTailor to create your transform. It's simple to use.

When you finally have your transform, you apply it, along with any other transform using the TRANSFORMS property on the command line. Let's say you're going to use 1033.MST and your own MST (called, say, CUSTOM.MST). Your command line will need to look like this:

MSIExec /i WHATEVER.MSI TRANSFORMS="1033.MST;CUSTOM.MST" [other command line arguments]

Depending on the application, 1033.mst or any other vendor supplied MST is used to set a "default install" of the product for whatever language group you specify. You are better leaving that to one side (look at it if you think it will help), but author and apply your own customised MST to get it to do what you actually want it to. Then you have a single MST, and know exactly what is being done during installation.

In addition, vendors are in the habit of holding their work up as the only valid route to a solution. Make ANY change to their files and they will regard the installation as not supported. Leave alone what you get supplied and make changes through your own files.

Thank you for all your answers, I could create a new .mst with the customizations that I needed. Also I saw that vendor .mst was just chose installation language and the applications works allways in english. So I'm going to use just my .mst