Edit an MSI to copy a folder during install

[dgsmith]

We have a custom Smartboard 10 MSI package which needs to have a "Downloaded Installationw" folder copied to an internal user's documents and settings folder, otherwise the installation doesn't finish. We find ourself having to manually copy this to each machine we install the package to and having to log in as an admin user, which then asks to locate this folder to finish the installation (if we copy the folder before logging in, it'll find it straight away and finish automatically).

 

How can we edit the MSI to make this folder copy during the installation? In my experience with MSIs, you have components and each component refers to an individual file - there are 100s of files in this folder! We just literally want to copy the folder into a particular area - can this be done as easily as we want?

 

In our case, the folder we want to copy to is "C:\Documents and Settings\(username)\Local Settings\Application Data".

[dgsmith]

Noone ever edits MSIs themselves??

[enjay]

Can I ask why you're not using Smart's administrators toolkit thingy to distribute their MSI? I used that here, and it installs a treat.

[dgsmith]

Must admit, I hadn't explored this avenue. I have given this a try, and all looked good at first, but then saving creates an xml file (I assume the settings in the management tool), and publishing creates an mst file, neither creating or amending an msi file ready for distribution.

 

Am I missing something very obvious?

[enjay]

With RM CC3 you can use MSTs when deploying via the AD - no idea how to do it outside of that though...

[Roopert]

In a windows environment the 'MST' file is used alongside the 'MSI' file, you create a package to distribute through active directory using the msi file, and in the creation process one of the tabs is 'modifications' where you point to the MST file.

[gotenks1321]

On a similiar note, what do you all use to create MSIs/MSTs? I'm just starting looking at using AD to deplot software since we've gone over to a vanilla network so am looking for some free software to use.

 

I have experience on CC3 with creating packages so it's not a completely new topic thankfully

 

And thanks for the SMART Admin installer, that will solve a few problems

[dwhyte85]

I used Advanced Installer, it's free to create a simple package. You can pretty much do what you want with it, just select the folder you want to deploy and then select your params for the deployment.

 

Not sure if you need more advice, if so drop a PM - although, pretty self explanatory :-)

[sparkeh]

I used Advanced Installer, it's free to create a simple package.

 

I have looked at this, but you can't use it to edit an existing MSI AFAIK (you need pro version I think)

 

I use WinInstall LE to edit msi but I would like a tool that creates MSTs

[glensc]

With RM CC3 you can use MSTs when deploying via the AD - no idea how to do it outside of that though...

 

It can be done this way, remember though that as it'll be a group policy it will be applied to an complete OU, not an individual machine.

 

The other thing I've found, in the past, is that it may work rolling out but sometimes can break rebuilds for that OU. So once you think you've got it working try to rebuild a machine in the OU before celebrating.