philipnet

I’ve been working on packaging a few work related software packages recently (more on those trials later). But I’ve just had a thought that wouldn’t it be nice if one could create administrative installation points for MSI files at a click of a button, rather than resorting to the command line or Start —> Run.

Well now you can.

Announcing “Create AIP” (I have a knack for stating the obvious) which is a registry file which you run on your system. It adds an entry for MSI files so you can right click on one, choose “Create AIP” then the MSI will launch and let you specify where to create the administrative installation point  .

There are two registry files, the right one depends on which OS you are running. If you are running Windows 2000 then download Create MSI AIP 2000. If you are running Windows XP or Server 2003 then download Create MSI AIP XP2003.

The difference is due the name of the Windows installation folder. With 2000 it’s “WinNT” and with XP and later it’s “Windows”.  I would have used “%windir%” and just produced one registry file, but that resulted in “Access denied” messages when invoked  .

N.B. This only works if the MSI file supports administrative installation points in the first place. Quick tests reveal that the MSI for Paint Shop Pro 7 does, but the one for the Microsoft Baseline Security Analyser does not.