Some good MSI information and tools

Regmon , Procmon, Filemon tools:

These tools are really helpful when we want to know what all registry information, file access is used by any process.

We can also check if there was any problem while modifying any registry information or permission related issues.

These are the tools we frequently use to troubleshoot such kind of issues.

Download location:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb545046.aspx

More tools:

www.sysinternals.com

Windows Installer technet:

As I was discussing with you regarding MSI related information, here is really a awesome articles which explain everything from beginning to end on MSI.

Windows Installer: Benefits and Implementation for System Administrators:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb742606.aspx#ENAA

Above article is having everything for you from beginning to end and how to read the log files.

Windows Installer resources

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;282477

Some brief concept of MSI:

Msiexec:

Each Windows Installer package (.msi) file contains a database that stores all the instructions for the Windows Installer service and data required to manage the state of a program, such as adding, changing, or removing it from a computer. For example, an .msi file of an application can contain instructions for installing the application when a prior version of the application is already installed. The .msi file could also contain instructions for installing the software on a computer where that application has never been present. To simplify creating and customizing .msi files, setup program authoring tool vendors have developed various authoring tools for Windows Installer.

The executable file for Windows Installer is msiexec.exe. To Installer–based application by using a change the state of a Windows command-line option, the syntax is:

msiexec.exe /command line option argument

Where argument might be the path and name of a file.

If a command-line option requires an argument, the argument must follow directly after the option, separated by at least one space. Command-line options are not case sensitive.

Some common command-line options follow:

/I installs an application

/QB sets the level of user interface to basic

/L enables logging

It is always helpful to enable logging as you can read from the log where the setup fails and reason for that.

Provides the means to install, modify, and perform operations on Windows Installer from the command line.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb490936.aspx

MSI command line options:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/9361d377-9011-4e21-8011-db371fa220ba1033.mspx?mfr=true