Windows SDK tools required for creating MSI packages

For creating installation packages with Advanced Installer, the build machine must have some tools installed. These tools are distributed with the Windows SDK and they are:

• SignTool.exe - this tools is used to digitally sign files by using .PFX certificates
• MsiMsp.exe - along with "Patchwiz.dll", this tool is used to create Windows Installer patches
• mergemod.dll - this file must be registered with "regsvr32.exe" in order to use Merge Modules in your installation package
• MsiZap.exe - with this tool you can remove a broken installation package

The Windows SDK can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. If you don't want to install the complete SDK just for these tools, you can use the Web Setup option. This way you will download only a small executable ("Setup.exe") which allows you to select which features you want to install.

For example, in the Windows SDK for Windows Server 2008 and .NET Framework 3.5 installation you can install only the Win32 Development Tools feature. Another way of installing this feature is through the msiexec command line.

On a 32-bit system:

msiexec /i http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/3/f/23f86204-39ee-4cd7-9a51-db19c9a8f8c4/WinSDKTools-x86.msi /qb

On a 64-bit system:

msiexec /i http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/3/f/23f86204-39ee-4cd7-9a51-db19c9a8f8c4/WinSDKTools-amd64.msi /qb

The above command lines will automatically download the WinSDKTools-x86.msi or WinSDKTools-amd64.msi package from Microsoft and install it. In these packages you can find all the tools required for creating installation packages with Advanced Installer.

The identifiers of the features in the Windows SDK change from version to version. Since it is recommended to use the latest Windows SDK, the command lines of the older SDK version will not be mentioned.