Some software programs are unpacked to both an msi ans exe setup file. If you are a end user you might wonder which to execute to install the application properly. Chance is that you tried both ways at least once and noticed that clicking the msi or the exe setup file would install the application properly. The setup.exe that you encounter in lots of software distributions is called a bootstrapper. This setup.exe file will check if the computer system is capable of running the software program; If it is it will initiate msiexec.exe which will launch the installation using the msi file.
Users who double-click on the msi file directly will also install the application but with the possibility that it will not run properly on the computer system. Take a computer program that requires the Microsoft .net Framework 3.5 for example. If the user has an older version of the framework installed setup.exe will download the files needed and launch the installation of the compatible framework and launch the installation using the msi file afterwards.
If the user installs using the msi file the installation will go through without problems but might experience an application crash or warning message while starting the application. It is therefor recommend on end user systems to always install applications using the setup.exe file if both a setup.exe and xyz.msi are available after unpacking the software program.
There are even some msi setup files out there that will not perform the installation upon execution but request an installation using the setup.exe file instead to ensure that all necessary components are installed.
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6 Responses to “MSI or EXE Setup”
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[...] Vía: Ghacks [...]
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[...] MSI or EXE Setup (ghacks.net) [...]
Why it never occur to me to find out the difference between these two file types. Thanks for the enlightenment, Martin =)
It’s easy to say that create both the msi setup and exe setup ! when user use VS to compile the setup file , it’s commonly create the msi file, not the exe file . so when you compiled the msi file , you need to convert the msi file to exe type as a copy . now here is a software can easy convert msi to exe . get it on site http://www.msi-to-exe.com , free to get it !
This tool mentioned on MSDN forums: http://www.msitoexe.com
Nicely explained, thanks!