Free packaging softwares

[screwball]

Hey giys, i'm searching for the free applications that allows the MSI packaging. I want to repackage some programs from .exe into MSI format for distribution via group policy . Do you any application like this? I need that application compatible with windows xp, because right now i have windows xp only. Thanks for any help.

[Nigel_123]

Download the Evaluation version of WinINSTALL MSI Packager Professional

Almost every enterprise IT organization must routinely deploy applications, updates, or patches. And experience proves that IT practices have a direct impact on the outcome.
Inadequate quality control, lack of standardization, or poorly packaged applications can strain help desks, burden IT resources, and limit end-user productivity. The process always goes more smoothly with properly prepared applications and managed deployment-two practices that correlate directly to application availability.

WinINSTALL provides the most popular and comprehensive software packaging solution on the market. It has a complete set of features to create Windows Installer (MSI) files from existing software installations and to modify existing Windows Installer packages using transforms. Unlike other packaging tools WinINSTALL is ideal for IT administrators while powerful enough for developers.


Key features of WinINSTALL MSI Packager Professional include:

• Package management, to build Windows Installer packages and merge modules, transforms, and patches
• Conflict assessment, to diagnose potential packaging conflicts before installation
• MSI validation and correction, to check (and automatically repair) MSI packages against standards such as the Microsoft Logo Certification
• Baselining, to accelerate package creation via an archived baseline image Patch wizard, to make MSP or patch file creation quicker and easier
• Package editing (logically laid out in the MSI Packager Professional console), to avoid cripting or conversion
• Package distribution, to "advertise" a product to the user and install it only upon request
• VMWare support, to easily use virtual machines for building and testing packages
• Distributed control, to access and check packages for conflicts across the enterprise

[Neel23]

I use the Advanced Installer, The free version of Advanced Installer from Aphyon is powerful and easy to use, but if you want to get into advanced packaging tricks like setting attributes, installing .NET assemblies, installing ODBC drivers and so on, then you’ll need to opt for the more powerful Professional version instead. Aphyon also provides optional features through add-ons that can be purchased extra. One cool feature of Advanced Installer is that it stores its Windows Installer project files in XML format. This simplifies versioning of packages you’re developing and lets you keep track of packages using a version control system. Another feature of Advanced Installer is that you can perform most actions from the command line. This allows you to automate application packaging using scripts, something that can be useful if you have a large enterprise with many applications to deploy. The current version of Advanced Installer is version 2.3 and you can download it here for Windows 2000/XP platforms.

[Mac rumor]

The Windows Installer (previously known as Microsoft Installer) is an engine for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software on modern Microsoft Windows systems. The installation information, and often the files themselves, are packaged in installation packages, loosely relational databases structured as OLE Structured Storage Files and commonly known as "MSI files", from their default file extension.

Articles about Windows Installer and .MSI packaging:

Overview of the Windows Installer Technology
HOW TO: Use Group Policy to Remotely Install Software in Windows Server 2003
HOW TO: Create Third-Party Microsoft Installer Package (MSI)