lessmsi
lessmsi copied to clipboard
activescott
Extract Registry to .REG files - Suggeston
The major feature of lessmsi is the ability to extract files easily. The ability to work with the MSI tables is of course already available in ORCA and Insted/Instedit.
What would be a major complementary feature however would be the ability to extract registry from an .MSI into .REG files.
@msitekkie Thank you for the suggestion! More than happy to consider it. Can you give a specific example of what you're trying to accomplish by "extract registry"? What registry entries are you try to extract and why?
Well, now that’s a very fair question and not so easy to answer off the top of my head. I know it is something I have wanted to do at various times in the past mainly while working as an Application Repackager, but difficult to remember specifics. InstallShield of course already has this capability, but many people can’t afford InstallShield.
I think it’s mostly been where I have wanted to transfer specific settings from one .MSI to another, perhaps when working on a new version of a package. It’s very helpful of course to be able to see the settings presented as a graphical tree to select what you want to export. So a first step (that would be more obviously useful to a wider range of people) would be to present a graphical regedit type view of the Registry settings in the MSI (albeit you may need to give the caveat that custom actions can also lay down or change registry settings). If more specific examples come to mind, Ill try to let you know.
To stand it on its head the ability to import .reg files would allow you to easily add custom settings into an .MSI if you wanted to reproduce a particular configuration multiple times by making the changes to ones PC and noting the specific registry settings that get changed – albeit you would need to associate the keys with a component when adding them into an MSI.
Regards,
Robin
From: scott willeke [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 25 December 2015 20:06 To: activescott/lessmsi Cc: msitekkie Subject: Re: [lessmsi] Extract Registry to .REG files - Suggeston (#54)
@msitekkie https://github.com/msitekkie Thank you for the suggestion! More than happy to consider it. Can you give a specific example of what you're trying to accomplish by "extract registry"? What registry entries are you try to extract and why?
— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/activescott/lessmsi/issues/54#issuecomment-167260741 . https://github.com/notifications/beacon/AMcYz18XcIRx_F7A88GrlPg80O6Yt2LYks5pTZlBgaJpZM4G7MG8.gif
I think I would also benefit from an option like this.
For instance, when deploying autodesk programs, you have to make a deployment first, and fiddle for ages with all the various options. It often breaks, and running their msi directly doesn't work at all. So I would like to get rid of their installer alltogether. Just copy all files and import the registry changes for every user.
@jjurkus thanks for the feedback.
ALL: Would love to accept a pull request for this!
@jjurkus , @msitekkie It would be great if you could link to some msi files that have registry changes that you'd like to be able to extract to .reg files. This will be useful for testing and will help verify that the Windows Installer Registry Table does in fact contain the registry changes that you want to extract (as MSI files could potentially change the registry using other mechanisms such as custom actions).
https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/autocad/downloads/caas/downloads/content/autodesk-C2-AE-autocad-C2-AE-2015-product-family-and-autodesk-autocad-electrical-2016-net-installation.html?v=2015 (or search for downloads for autocad 2015 -> 22 feb 2017 hotfix for installation)
From the zip choose this file: Autodesk AutoCAD 2015\x64\enu\acad.msi The autocad installer is three parts, first the base acad.msi, then acadLP.msi (languagepack) and then acadPS.msi. Something like that. It's a mess. And after install it has a per-user component that... argh!
Let's just focus on acad.msi, this is normally distributed with a load of other files. There is a bit in the registry part, but most of it is in the CustomAction sections. I'm not sure if that's workable.
The hotfix was to make it possible to install autocad2015 with .net 4.6 installed. The installer has a wrong stringcompare or something, and thinks .net 4.6 is older than .net 4.5. In my script I've fixed this months ago, by changing the registry key to what the installer wants to see. I've also tried to install autocad 2013 with only the msi files, and not by using the external setup.exe. I spent a few weeks on that and was never successfull.
TortoiseGit is a good example.
It has Registry entries in 'Registry' table.
MSI can be downloaded from https://tortoisegit.org/download/
