Software Deployment

Are you sure there is a serial number inside the mst?

When you install with UI are you getting the serial number in the respective window?

If so I can see three possibilities for the serial number in the msi/mst
- In any of the registry
- as a property
- property value set by a custom action.

have you searched using the serial number itself?

I ran the .MSI manually and it does prompt for a serial number. I enter the serial number and the install proceeds. I have done a search for the serial number in All Tables in the .MSI and nothing is found. And I have never seen a Custom Action used to hande the serial number since it's only just a Property. And yes, I looked at all Properties and it is not there. Very strange.....

I enter the serial number and the install proceeds

Are you trying to create mst using tuner and are you looking for that serial number inside that created mst?

I think i dint get your query correctly. Could you please explain it more?

ORIGINAL: mhsl808
I ran the .MSI manually and it does prompt for a serial number. I enter the serial number and the install proceeds. I have done a search for the serial number in All Tables in the .MSI and nothing is found.

Why the need to search in MSI? The serial number won't be there in MSI file. If you create an MST by InstallTailor/Tuner, then you may have the serial number in the Property values of that MST. Alternatively, if you log the MSI install - you can find which property is being used to hold the serial number.

I ented up creating a new .MST file. But, what I wanted to know is how many different places can a Serial Number be stored within a .MST file? The .MST file I had "did" have the serial number inside of it. I know this because when I ran msiexec /i MyApp.msi TRANSFORMS=MyApp.MST /qb! it installs the application and it all works. But, when I searched this .MST for the serial number it could not be found.

But, like I said I used AdminStudio to create a new .MST and I am good to go.

I think you can get the clue by doing this way.
Install mst with UI creating log, when the serial number window opens (you should see the serial number there) break the log, go next step, then check the log file.

You may not necessarily see the property exposed even in a verbose log file if the property/properties concerned have been added to the MsiHiddenProperties property - this is fairly common especially where serial numbers are concerned and the vendor doesn't want them to be revealed in the installation log.

Have you considered that the property/properties might have been added as AdminProperties? If this is the case, they will be buried in a stream so you might need to use the wistream.vbs script from the Platform SDK (or something similar) to manage this.

Spartacus

try look for PIDKEY

If I understand the question correctly, you have an mst that contains a serial number and you want to see if it is stored as a property. To see what changes an mst makes to a msi quickly just open them both in Orca, it will highlight what the mst has changed. Orca is part of the SDK.