Cannot install.msi file - installer being weird I'm trying to install a.msi file. When I double-click the file, it gives me a pop-up that says 'Windows Installer' in the title bar and then has the following text in a box. If you experience an issue with a program trying to install a.msi file that is missing, the issue is most likely a corrupted Windows Installer issue. Click on the following link to download the Windows Installer Cleanup Utility and fix it.
![Msi Msi](/uploads/1/2/5/4/125407721/132980328.png)
I wanted to install a program that came with both an EXE and MSI installer. I first installed from MSI, which only installed the program files (not any prerequisites or dependencies, and didn't create Start Menu icons). When I manually launched the program, it failed saying certain DLLs were missing. Installing from the EXE installed other things too, and the product ran just fine. I would say, if a software maker provides both an EXE and MSI option for installing, use the EXE. – Apr 12 '18 at 22:06.
An MSI is a Windows Installer database. Windows Installer (a service installed with Windows) uses this to install software on your system (i.e. Copy files, set registry values, etc.). A setup.exe may either be a bootstrapper or a non-msi installer. A non-msi installer will extract the installation resources from itself and manage their installation directly. A bootstrapper will contain an MSI instead of individual files.
In this case, the setup.exe will call Windows Installer to install the MSI. Some reasons you might want to use a setup.exe:.
Windows Installer only allows one MSI to be installing at a time. This means that it is difficult to have an MSI install other MSIs (e.g. Dependencies like the.NET framework or C runtime). Since a setup.exe is not an MSI, it can be used to install several MSIs in sequence. You might want more precise control over how the installation is managed. An MSI has very specific rules about how it manages the installations, including installing, upgrading, and uninstalling.
A setup.exe gives complete control over the software configuration process. This should only be done if you really need the extra control since it is a lot of work, and it can be tricky to get it right.
MSI Files An MSI file contains a primitive MS SQL database embedded in a COM-structured storage file (a file system in a file with storage streams of various types - the old MS Office COM/OLE format). You can extract files from an MSI, or you can actually decompile the whole MSI with all its streams. Each approach is described briefly below. With decompilation (almost) full transparency is possible, with the exception of compiled custom actions (generally written in C/C). Managed, compiled code (C#) may actually be (theoretically) decompiled. In order to determine (roughly) what a black-box custom action actually does, you can capture an MSI install using - which scans the system before and after installation listing any changes - you see what has happened, but not how it has happened.
Very few people have the need for this level of scrutiny.