Microsoft’s Orca MSI Editor is intuitive, straightforward, and simple

Orca: free MSI editor or perfect killing machine? Yes.

I’ve been working a lot recently with Macrovision’s AdminStudio package, which includes their popular InstallShield .msi creation software. While it’s safe to say that InstallShield provides a serious level of drag-and-drop ease with their product, it’s also equally safe to say the $1500 price tag is probably out of the reach of most home users who, say, want to package up their GPL app into a nice, clean installer format. That’s where Orca comes in.

A free app available from Microsoft as part of their massive (>1.5Gb) SDK, but better acquired on its own as a tiny download from Aaron Stebner’s blog. The direct link for download is here.

Now, Orca obviously doesn’t include all of the GUI features that you’ll find in InstallShield-after all, it’s a free product from Microsoft-but it’s certainly good for what it does allow you to do: make quick and easy edits to existing .msi’s and create simple installers for free. I recently used it to add in several products to the Upgrade table for an existing installer, a task which is particularly simple with Orca’s direct editing interface. Also, in spite of being less drag-and-drop than its expensive Macrovision cousin, Orca does feature really helpful pop-up dialog boxes that provide the user with paradigms and expected values to enter into the MSI tables, a feature that will be of great help to those just getting started with creating .msi’s. All in all, it’s a really nice tool for Microsoft to hand out for free, and something fun to have on your computer to spy on the inner workings of other people’s installers.

Orca, msi, .msi, installer, installshield, adminstudio, macrovision, microsoft, edit MSI, edit .msi, msi table, GPL, application packaging, free software

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Nov 9, 2006

• Posted by Vasken
• 5 comments
• PC Tips
• adminstudio, application packaging, edit MSI, free software, GPL, Installer, InstallShield, macrovision, Microsoft, msi, msi table, Orca

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Comments

Dennis Bareis (Dec 07, 2006)

Hi,

You might like to have a look at my freeware MAKEMSI (and MSIDIFF) tools.

It can automate the editing or MSI creation.

Bye,
Dennis

Alcibiades (Dec 13, 2006)

Hi Dennis,

Just got MAKEMSI and I'm trying it out. Seems like it does a good job of packing up a directory and creating an MSI. I'll post an article when I've got enough info for a full review.

-Alcibiades

Craig Steddy (Mar 31, 2009)

For editing existing MSIs InstEd from http://www.instedit.com is a good free alternative to Orca.

Vasken (Mar 31, 2009)

Thanks for the tip, Craig. I'll check it out.

Neil (Apr 14, 2009)

There's a new plugin available for InstEd the free MSI editor alternative to Orca from Microsoft