Microsoft’s Orca MSI Editor is intuitive, straightforward, and simple
November 9, 2006 PC Tips 2 Comments |
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.