Question

I need to resolve target paths from an MSI database, outside of the installation. I am currently doing this using the Wix SDK by querying the database’s Directory and File tables and constructing the paths from there, but resolving paths seems like something that should already be built-in. Is there a library that does this, even something unofficial, or am I stuck with doing it on my own?

This question has already been asked for C++, but the only answer somehow misunderstood the question to be about strings.

I don’t really mind performance. My real concern is with resolving special folders like “.:Fonts”, “.:Windows”, “.:WinRoot”, etc. – which I can still do in my own code but not very elegantly.

Answer 1

I did the same thing you did when DTF first came out. I wrote all the queries and loops to get the data I was working for. And the performance was kind of painful.

Then I noticed the InstallPackage class in the Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller.Package assembly. I felt kind of silly when I saw how fast and simple the following code is using that class:

using System;
using Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller;
using Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller.Package;

namespace ConsoleApplication1
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            using (var package = new InstallPackage("foo.msi", DatabaseOpenMode.ReadOnly))
            {
                foreach (var filePath in package.Files)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine(filePath.Value);
                }
                Console.WriteLine("Finished");
                Console.Read();
            }
        }
    }
}