MSI editor/packager

VoodooV

The boss finally gave me approval to get a MSI editor/creator tool. We've had our eye on this product for some time:

http://www.scriptlogic.com/products/msi-studio/

But i'd like to get a feel for what else is out there and has worked out well for others. I've heard there are some freeware MSI editors/creators out there. But are they any good?

We just want something to use in conjunction with Group Policy Software Installation. It's my understanding that you can only use MSI and MST with Software installation and that you can't pass command line arguments to GP Software installation.

Add to that we still have a fair amount of apps that either require a lot of custom settings changes, legacy and homebrew apps that we'd like to automate.

Thanks in advance!

PirateJon

You're right about GP limitations.

I don't use GP to push software (we use SMS), but I've used the installshield admin studio and it's pretty slick. I haven't used scriptlogic's version - but their primalscript is very handy and I use that all the time.

For free MSI builders, I've only used nullsoft's NSIS. http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page. Learning curve isn't bad and it's pretty feature rich and useful enough that I gave my installshield license to one of our dev's. You will need the compiler piece (linked) and an editor. I've used HM NIS edit forever.

embrik

We use SMS here for deployment too. Our packaging tool is Wise Package Studio, which has worked great for us.