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SOLVED What is Difference Between MSI or EXE Deployment Through SCCM
- Thread starter sekharsam
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App installs occur with 3 different ways, an executable with custom code, msi install and executable that wraps/contains msi file within it. Executable files (.exe) contain executable code for a computer to run, and can do multiple things. Most of the software are available for download as executable. Whereas MSI files are database files, used by Windows Installer. They contain information about an application which is divided into features and components, and every component may hold files, registry data, shortcuts etc.
Difference Between MSI or EXE Deployment Through SCCM - Not all apps are msi but the deployment using msi file is easier than exe. As mentioned earlier msi fie contain information about the app, the SCCM can read most of the info from the msi file and use the install and uninstall switches accordingly. I would like to add a note that not all msi's contain uninstall info but most of them contain. With msi files you can achieve a clean install and uninstall of app. With the exe files, you might have to find out the switches that support silent install and usually these are found on the site where you download the executable. Detection method is also something that you need to find out for exe installation.
Difference Between MSI or EXE Deployment Through SCCM - Not all apps are msi but the deployment using msi file is easier than exe. As mentioned earlier msi fie contain information about the app, the SCCM can read most of the info from the msi file and use the install and uninstall switches accordingly. I would like to add a note that not all msi's contain uninstall info but most of them contain. With msi files you can achieve a clean install and uninstall of app. With the exe files, you might have to find out the switches that support silent install and usually these are found on the site where you download the executable. Detection method is also something that you need to find out for exe installation.
Nagendra Pratap Singh
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While it is true that .msi is chosen by default and is convenient, in most cases, choosing "Manually specify the application information" is a much better option. You can use a wrapper script to launch the installation mechanism and use the script for housekeeping.
There are many software, including MS Office that use setup.exe etc. Other programs like Nero have more than 20 .msi files within the main installer. A script can do all this and also log the current system variables, kill process, stop services, change folder permissions etc.
Scripts like PSAppDeployToolkit also gives you the option to add additional logic + front ends to your application.
There are many software, including MS Office that use setup.exe etc. Other programs like Nero have more than 20 .msi files within the main installer. A script can do all this and also log the current system variables, kill process, stop services, change folder permissions etc.
Scripts like PSAppDeployToolkit also gives you the option to add additional logic + front ends to your application.
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