based on this build failure looks like we need to add this as a nuget pkg instead of as a standard reference.

Lessmsi also integrates with Windows Explorer so that you can right-click on a Windows Installer file (.msi file) and select "Extract Files" to extract it into a folder right there:

they test it under Windows 7 64-bit?
he can not open the. msi file! (ERROR:Failed to open file)
the parameters are not correct!

Existing "ExpectedOutput" files used to run unit tests all begin with C:\projects\lessmsi\src\Lessmsi.Tests\bin\Debug\<msiFileName> and they should be relative. Otherwise anyone trying to run tests must have the project running from C:\projects\lessmsi\src\Lessmsi.Tests\bin\Debug\<msiFileName>.
Remove the root of this path or make the tests resilient enough to ignore that portion of the paths when doing comparisons.

from https://code.google.com/p/lessmsi/issues/detail?id=7

Project Member Reported by activescott, Mar 18, 2010

What steps will reproduce the problem?

1. Use WinSDK_x86.msi
2. Extrac

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
Should extract normally, but nothing happens.

At a minimum it should provide better error messages.

Mar 18, 2010 Delete comment #1 [email protected]

1. Download the Windows 7 SDK ISO from here:
   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=71deb800-c591-4f97-a900-
   bea146e4fae1&displaylang=en
2. Mount the ISO
3. In lessmsi.exe open \Setup\WinSDK\WinSDK_x86.msi (notice external cab)
4. Attempt to extract "hxds.dll"
5. After clicking OK for the extract folder nothing happens and no errors are
   presented.

Thanks,
D.
Mar 18, 2010 Delete comment Project Member #2 activescott
Thanks for the details. Very helpful. I'm making this high priority. Will investigate next
time I work on the project.
Labels: -Priority-Medium Priority-High
Mar 18, 2010 Delete comment Project Member #3 activescott
(No comment was entered for this change.)
Status: Accepted
Mar 18, 2010 Delete comment Project Member #4 activescott
(No comment was entered for this change.)
Labels: Milestone-Release2.0
Mar 2, 2011 Delete comment Project Member #5 activescott
Note: See issue 9 which is related to this.

Thank you for lessmsi 1.1.6.

I would like to request the ability to extract files from the Binary table.

Thank you! :)

Well duh, I didn't know we had one of these for windows that was free: http://www.appveyor.com/

I have Win xp sp2,
it has the error "The application failed to initialize properly (0xc0000135). Click on OK to terminate the application"

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/dotnetnative.aspx

1. launch lessmsi-gui.exe and open a file.
2. Note that it appears in the File > MRU list.
3. Exist/close the app
4. Re-open the app
5. Notice that the MRU list is empty.

happens in v1.1.7

From https://code.google.com/p/lessmsi/issues/detail?id=2

Extraction (lessmsi x) fails if the combined length of the destination directory and a file in the MSI exceeds the usual 260 character limit:

lessmsi x mypkg.msi destdir\
Extracting 'c:\somedir\mypkg.msi' to 'c:\somedir\destdir\'.
fopen error:2

Error: System.Exception: Error 'MSPACK_ERR_OPEN' extracting file to c:\somedir\destdir\SourceDir\PFiles\and\then\a\very\long\file\name.
   at LibMSPackN.MSCompressedFile.ExtractTo(String destinationFilename)
   at LessMsi.Msi.Wixtracts.ExtractFiles(FileInfo msi, DirectoryInfo outputDir, MsiFile[] filesToExtract, AsyncCallback progressCallback)
   at LessMsi.Cli.Program.DoExtraction(String msiFileName, String outDirName, List`1 filesToExtract)
   at LessMsi.Cli.ExtractCommand.Run(List`1 allArgs)
   at LessMsi.Cli.Program.Main(String[] args)

(The path names in the example above has been edited; pretend they are much longer.)

Despite using a relative path name for the extraction directory (destdir\), it is being converted to an absolute file name when the file is extracted. Permitting relative destination path names all the way might shorten them somewhat, but would do nothing about long paths in the archive file.

Using the Windows 'long' file name syntax, \\?\c:\somedir\destdir\, would solve the problem but does not work in lessmsi at all. Apparently, the .NET system libs don't like that syntax very much, although it works well on the Win32 API level. There are apparently some replacement libs that remedy this.

File version appears as 0.0.0.0 on Win8 Tooltip popup. Need to set attribute or compile option?
Minor.

Readme indicates errors are displayed on the command line when using it via winebottler. Investigate and fix.

I loathe to do this on one hand because I always thought that MSFT should support and improve NUnit rather than creating another unit testing tool (at least be completely compatible with it). However, I've found NUnit is now unbearable to use with VS 2015 and .NET frameworks. It is extremely difficult to figure out that you need to install several add-ons and weird packages just to see unit tests and even once installed it regularly doesn't show all the unit tests.
Since one of my goals is to keep lessmsi easy to get going with I've decided to remove nunit and use the new lowest common denominator for unit testing which appears to be VS/MS unit testing.

pull them from github API and dispaly in about box. part of build script.

I was trying to dump the Component table to csv and used the following command line as shown below.

C:\lessmsi-v1.2.0> lessmsi.exe l Component setup.msi

Error: You must specify the table name to list.

Usage:
lessmsi <command> [options] <msi_name> [<path_to_extract\>] [file_names]

Commands:
  x  Extracts all or specified files from the specified msi_name.
  l  Lists the contents of the specified msi table as CSV to stdout.
  v  Lists the value of the ProductVersion Property in the msi
     (typically this is the version of the MSI).
  o  Opens the specified msi_name in the GUI.
  h  Shows this help page.

For more information see http://lessmsi.activescott.com

The command line used is consistent with the help dialog but shows the error message Error: You must specify the table name to list.

After searching the source code, I found that the l option actually requires the table to be specified as -t Component. The -t is missing from the help message.

As part of the implementation to issue #19, we removed the old -o command line option (to open a MSI in the GUI). I think we can reasonable preserve this functionality by running the gui in a separate process to reasonably preserve existing functionality.

hi,

my msi file isnt working:

E:\temp_>e:\lessmsi-v1.3\lessmsi.exe x "{F7FC242D-A96D-4051-8C80-D1F5301EE36E}\P
rezi.msi" prex
Extracting 'E:\temp_\{F7FC242D-A96D-4051-8C80-D1F5301EE36E}\Prezi.msi' to 'E:\te
mp_\Prezi'.
File prex was not found in the msi.
^C
E:\temp_>e:\lessmsi-v1.3\lessmsi.exe x "{F7FC242D-A96D-4051-8C80-D1F5301EE36E}\P
rezi.msi" prex\
Extracting 'E:\temp_\{F7FC242D-A96D-4051-8C80-D1F5301EE36E}\Prezi.msi' to 'E:\te
mp_\prex\'.

Error: System.IO.IOException: IO operation will not work. Most likely the file w
ill become too long or the handle was not opened to support synchronous IO opera
tions.
   at System.IO.FileStream.WriteCore(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count)
   at System.IO.FileStream.Write(Byte[] array, Int32 offset, Int32 count)
   at System.IO.BinaryWriter.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 index, Int32 count)
   at LessMsi.Msi.Wixtracts.ExtractCabFromPackage(String filePath, String cabNam
e, Database inputDatabase)
   at LessMsi.Msi.Wixtracts.CabsFromMsiToDisk(FileInfo msi, Database msidb, Dire
ctoryInfo outputDir)
   at LessMsi.Msi.Wixtracts.ExtractFiles(FileInfo msi, DirectoryInfo outputDir,
MsiFile[] filesToExtract, AsyncCallback progressCallback)
   at LessMsi.Msi.Wixtracts.ExtractFiles(FileInfo msi, DirectoryInfo outputDir,
String[] fileNamesToExtract)
   at LessMsi.Cli.Program.DoExtraction(String msiFileName, String outDirName, Li
st`1 filesToExtract)
   at LessMsi.Cli.ExtractCommand.Run(List`1 allArgs)
   at LessMsi.Cli.Program.Main(String[] args)

Usage:
lessmsi <command> [options] <msi_name> [<path_to_extract\>] [file_names]

Commands:
  x  Extracts all or specified files from the specified msi_name.
  l  Lists the contents of the specified msi table as CSV to stdout.
  v  Lists the value of the ProductVersion Property in the msi
     (typically this is the version of the MSI).
  o  Opens the specified msi_name in the GUI.
  h  Shows this help page.

For more information see http://lessmsi.activescott.com


E:\temp_>

External packages cannot depend on packages that target projects is the error I get. This used to mean that there was a lib/content folder somewhere in the package, but I see that the package is properly doing that.

These lines are causing the issue. If I remove those lines it will install successfully.

<frameworkAssemblies>
  <frameworkAssembly assemblyName="System" targetFramework=".NETFramework3.5-Client" />
  <frameworkAssembly assemblyName="System.Data" targetFramework=".NETFramework3.5-Client" />
  <frameworkAssembly assemblyName="System.Drawing" targetFramework=".NETFramework3.5-Client" />
  <frameworkAssembly assemblyName="System.Windows.Forms" targetFramework=".NETFramework3.5-Client" />
</frameworkAssemblies>

After activescott/libmspack4n#4 , consume it.

Related to issue #19, I was just thinking that since some people might be using command line arguments to lessmsi.exe in applications, it makes sense to preserve lessmsi.exe for the cli version of the app. This would prevent people that already rely on lessmsi.exe in scripts or other places to do any updates.

This is an msi that comes with WDK. If you need help locating it let me know.

C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Debuggers\Redist\X86 Debuggers And Tools-x86_en-us.msi

Windows explorer (since Win 7) provides the "copy as path" context menu command to get file path. However it encapsulates the file path on the clipboard with double quotes (e.g. "C:\path\to\my\file.txt"). This causes new FileInfo(txtMsiFileName.Text); in ReloadCurrentUIOnEnterKeyDown to throw an System.ArgumentException: Illegal characters in path., or the user has to do some tedious Home Delete End Backspace editing each time.

Purely in the spirit of nice UX it would be good to handle paths contained in double quotes, and catch some of the common path exceptions from typos. I've built a two-line fix for the first part at AGBrown/lessmsi/9d73c374 and handling some of the possible exceptions for bad paths at AGBrown/lessmsi/fa39baad. Pull request to follow.

The major feature of lessmsi is the ability to extract files easily. The ability to work with the MSI tables is of course already available in ORCA and Insted/Instedit.

What would be a major complementary feature however would be the ability to extract registry from an .MSI into .REG files.

Less MSIérables is a very good tool, but why has Less MSIérables no symbol (Icon) ?
Could please create a Symbol?

it would be very good! a resolution of 256x256 would be perfect!

From https://code.google.com/p/lessmsi/issues/detail?id=9

Reported by [email protected], Mar 18, 2010
If I run a setup.exe wrapper on a DVD it presents all the content on the
disk as one unified feature tree - yet on the disk itself there may be many
MSIs that comprise this view. The Windows 7 SDK is exactly this way.

So when I know I need a single file out of the SDK, it would be great to
see all files on the DVD in one view.

What steps will demonstrate the feature request?

1. Download the Windows 7 SDK from here:
   http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=71deb800-c591-4f97-a900-bea146e4fae1&displaylang=en
2. Examine the package structure - the root install EXE is called
   setup.exe, but it spans everything on the disk.
3. Under the "setup" folder there are many subfolders each containing an
   MSI with an external Cab.

It would be great if I could tell lessmsi to open all MSIs in a folder tree
and present one consolidated view of the files. Would probably be
necessary to have a column for "MSI" file.
Mar 2, 2011 Delete comment Project Member #1 activescott
This is related to issue 7 (http://code.google.com/p/lessmsi/issues/detail?id=7) since it assumes support for external CABs. I agree with the idea and will accept it but it is a relatively big effort so I can't commit to doing it soon.
Summary: Support DVD-wide aggregation/listing of all files in all CABs on from a DVD
Labels: -Type-Defect Type-Enhancement
Mar 2, 2011 Delete comment Project Member #2 activescott
(No comment was entered for this change.)
Status: Accepted
Mar 26, 2013 Delete comment Project Member #3 activescott
(No comment was entered for this change.)
Labels: -Priority-Medium Priority-Low

Deploy directly from appveyor to nuget/github releases using the following tricks:

• Only deploy master: http://www.appveyor.com/docs/deployment#conditional-deployment
• Only deploy when tagged: http://www.appveyor.com/docs/deployment#deploy-on-tag-github-and-gitlab-only
• Publish github release http://www.appveyor.com/docs/deployment/github
• Use Secure Variables for chocolatey http://www.appveyor.com/docs/build-configuration#secure-variables
• Push choco package

Publish Release notes from issues?

With the helpful addition of issue #58 , what should be simple file IO code has kind of bled through the codebase and made it ugly. It's also going to be more difficult to ever get the code working on mac/linux (should I ever follow through on issue #3 ). So I think it is necessary to refactor the File I/O code into its own library.

Program will not close if it is the frontmost window when clicking x. If it is not the front most window it seems to close. also right clicking on taskbar icon and selecting close will close it. Running windows 8

where are the compiled executables?

lessmsi.exe can list msi tables, but seeing what files are in an msi is more important. Please consider adding this feature to lessmsi.exe. Thanks.

Hi,
I've just tried your lessmsi tool and I would use it if it had better basic MSI information in the summary. I just want to get the 'Description', 'Version' and uninstall string GUID so I can copy the string and use in a package for deployment.
Would it be possible to add these to the summary page?
thanks
Paul

when using lessmsi in commandline mode it seems that 'enter' is three times pressed/send to the parent process after an unsuccessful unpacking attempt.

At the moment, the lessmsi command line allows the dumping of a single table to stdout.

I would like a command line option to dump all the tables in the msi to a set of msi files in the specified directory (or an Excel file).

A possible command line might be:
lessmsi t -csv <msi_name> <path_for_csv_files>

t : means table output
-csv : use csv format

According to msdn article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.reflection.assemblyversionattribute.aspx version you set up is invalid because there is possibility to make "fresher" build with lower version number.
[assembly:AssemblyVersion("1.0.10.*")] specifies 1 as the major version, 0 as the minor version, 10 as the build number, and accepts the default revision number. The default revision number is the number of seconds since midnight local time (without taking into account time zone adjustments for daylight saving time), divided by 2.

If I were to split the project into two parts (logic DLL and GUI EXE) would you be interested in merging that back into your master?
Are there any pitfalls I should be aware of? Any naming suggestions for the new assemblies? LessMsi.Core.dll and LessMsi.exe perhaps?

I'm working on a cross-platform package manager called Zero Install. It is designed to use existing ZIP/TAR/... archives and handles all the nitty-gritty details of integration into the desktop environment in a controlled and reproducible way. I would love to use a LessMSI DLL to add MSI-extraction support to Zero Install.

From https://code.google.com/p/lessmsi/issues/detail?id=3

See the following article: http://hunter555.blogspot.com/2007/02/installer-error-code-2869-msi-and-uac.html

Interesting idea. Lessmsi maybe needs another suite of tools or a utility for
modifying msi files. Currently it is only readonly, but I can see how this stuff
is useful.

melnikov.alex
yes, modifying some flags directly, without rebuilding msi would be a good feature.
//alex

from https://code.google.com/p/lessmsi/issues/detail?id=27

Reported by alibhai.ashiq, Sep 11, 2012
I have an MSI-based InstallShield 10 MSI that I want to extract the files from. I can view the files in the LessMSI application, but when I attempt to extract them, I get this error:

Error: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x00000002): Failed to close cab extract object, error: 2
at Microsoft.Tools.WindowsInstallerXml.Cab.WixExtractCab.Close()
at LessMsi.Msi.Wixtracts.ExplodeAllMediaCabs(Database msidb, DirectoryInfo baseOutputPath)
at LessMsi.Msi.Wixtracts.ExtractFiles(FileInfo msi, DirectoryInfo outputDir, MsiFile[] filesToExtract, AsyncCallback progressCallback)
at LessMsi.Program.DoExtraction(String msiFileName, String outDirName)
at LessMsi.Program.Main(String[] argStrings)

I cannot provide a file (employer's IP), but I am very keen to resolve this.
Jan 27, 2013 Delete comment Project Member #1 activescott
Installshield uses a proprietary cab format. No easy way to deal with this. There is an open source library (mentioned in the libmspack source code AFAIR) that maybe could help but will require quite a bit of effort.
Labels: -Priority-Medium Priority-Low
Jan 27, 2013 Delete comment Project Member #2 activescott
Could at least improve the error message. I know I can detect these cabs now using libmspack.
Summary: Cannot extract cab from InstallShield msi's (Extract failed: Failed to close cab extract object, errror: 2) (was: Extract failed: Failed to close cab extract object, errror: 2)
Aug 1, 2013 Delete comment Project Member #3 activescott
Can someone attach an installshield msi here and I'll try to at least improve the error message by detecting installshield's cabs and writing out an informative error.
Status: Accepted

This machine also has VS2012 on it (w/ .NET 4.5.50709), so .NET should not be necessary install. WTF?

from https://code.google.com/p/lessmsi/issues/detail?id=5

Thank you for lessmsi.

I would like to request that the Component column be added to the "Extract Files" grid.

In this way, I can sort by the Component column and then select only the 5 files in that component to extract, as opposed to the 100 other files in the msi for example.

Thank you.

does not work with Windows 10 Build 10240! old .NET Version! Can you please publish a fully supported version? Thx's

Please also add a licence to this repo.

Would be awesome if there was a lightweight .NET API (in similarity to Sharpziplib) that allowed one to simply point to a file path, open an MSI archive stream, fetch files from it, etc.

Looks like LessMSI.Core may meet that demand?
I, for one, would give that NuGet package a try :)

Used to -x or -extract would do, and Intel had zips... but no more...
but to package drivers and no fluf to update server......
WIX tool kit makes EXE/MSI , cant get the msi out of exe anymore "go for Intel inside" . to just get at drivers.
also rather handy to slip into USB/iso key , boot/wim so I don't have windows nagging about 10 drivers on dozens of machines. (NTlite and done. can add missing drives so on boot/setup they are installed. )

also it would be nice in some cases not to have to install WIXtoolkit. just to get at msi to use Lessmsi

Point being is hopefully a plugin can be made to handle these pesky sob's, so msi unpack is more seamless from wix...

wix-unpacker.ps1.txt
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/26749207/extract-contents-of-burn-bootstrapper
http://www.wrightfully.com/extracting-msi-files-without-running-the-installer

Hi!
I'm really happy you decided to merge my code to master branch but your changes in functionaliy I wrote made some errors.

Ctrl + f enables search panel but you can't turn it off
No button "remove filter"
Search pannel is not movable and when you move main window it stays.

I suggest to back to my commit but move search pannel to bottom of table grid or under table grid instead of columns names like it was in my commit.

What do you think about this?

I try to extract msi to a folder with

PS>lessmsi x "D:\path to .msi" "D:\destination\pa th"

and it extracts the msi file to D:\ and tries to lookup some file called "D:\destination\pa th" in the msi archive:

Extracting 'D:....msi' to 'D:'.
File D:\destination\pa th" was not found in the msi.

I installed the lessmsi latest from chocolatey.org into my powershell.