0

Is there a free repackaging tool (.exe to .msi) by Microsoft ? My boss told me he was using one before, that was from Microsoft, and free and was working perfectly, so I am trying to search out for it.

On the Internet I didn't find any free ones, which doesn't really work out for me.

pnuts
  • 58,317
  • 11
  • 87
  • 139
Milkncookiez
  • 6,817
  • 10
  • 57
  • 96

2 Answers2

1

There used to be a (InstallShield/Flexera Software) AdminStudio SCCM Edition that was free for SCCM customers of Microsoft. That's the closest I can think of as "free".

Truthfully I don't even use AdminStudio or the InstallShield repackager anymore. The authoring quality is just too low for me. I'll use free tools to capture what the installer did, reverse engineer the rest of the details, refactor as needed then write it from scratch using Windows Installer XML (WiX).

It takes a lot of knowledge and experience to be able to do all that, but it's all possible with free tools.

Christopher Painter
  • 54,556
  • 6
  • 63
  • 100
0

There's a Windows Installer project template in Visual Studio you can use - I guess that's what your boss remembered.

Notice that in VS 2012, it uses InstallShield LE to accomplish the packaging (see this).

Traveling Tech Guy
  • 27,194
  • 23
  • 111
  • 159
  • Yeah, I have come across doing that with Setup project. I actually found a step-by-step guide how to make .msi with a Setup Project in VS, but the problem is that out program has already been deployed and initially it was created and developed as a normal VB.NET project. – Milkncookiez May 02 '13 at 21:13
  • If you don't have the sources for the original installer, you'll have to create it from scratch anyway. – Traveling Tech Guy May 02 '13 at 21:30