Re: Creating MSI Package from VB 6.0 project

Another option under the category of "when you're
ready to drop the Microsoft requirement":

There's something called Advanced Installer. They
spam the MSI groups regularly. It seems that if you
only need basic functions their product is free.

Microsoft has a conspicuous lack of MSI tools.
I suspect they were afraid of stepping on the toes of
InstallShield, Wise, etc., so they cooked up an entirely
unusable system and then left it to the 3rd-party
companies to make it usable.

In a sense, any MSI is a Microsoft product, since
msiexec is going to run the msi using msi.dll. The
3rd-party tools are just ways to make it easier, like
having a GUI wizard for C++.

An MSI file is actually an SQL database, and you can
create it yourself from scratch using the API or scripting
object model documented in the SDK. You can use
Notepad, or use the MSI editor, Orca, that comes with
the SDK. But an MSI file has dozens of quirky, cross-
referenced tables. (The actual software is usually embedded
as a CAB file stored as a binary stream in the database.)
Building an MSI without "wizard" tools is a very tedious job.

If you want to try to find more options you might try:

microsoft.public.platformsdk.msi


This is what our consultant says.."Deploying the application through a
packaged .MSI file (Not possible as VB 6.0 does not have a .MSI Packaging
utility)" ...how true is this and is there any way I can build MSI
deployment package of VB 6.0 project and use it for central deployment in
Windows 2003 Active Directory and Windows XP Professional clients...Please
treat this as Urgent...Please....Let me point here...I am looking for
Microsoft tools and not third party ones...I already know Admin Studio can
do that....




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