Expand msi file

Windows has the ability to allow the MSI file contents to be extracted using the Command Prompt or via a script. Thankfully the syntax to unpack an MSI file is pretty simple, the following can be inserted into the Run box, Command Prompt or your own script.

If you see a broken image, please right-click and select 'Open image in a new tab'. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. How do I extract files from an MSI package? Ask Question. Asked 12 years, 11 months ago.

Active 5 months ago. Viewed k times. Can anyone advise a way to extract files from an MSI installation package? Improve this question.

Stevoisiak 12k 31 31 gold badges 89 89 silver badges bronze badges. Martin Martin 3, 6 6 gold badges 29 29 silver badges 33 33 bronze badges.

Can you provide more information on what exact MSI installation package you want to extract, your OS details etc. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. First, to access a command prompt, do this: Click the Start button. Click All Programs. Go into Accessories. Left-click on Command Prompt. Improve this answer. The software is neither found in the appwiz nor can it be uninstalled via the msi and reports that it is not installed.

It truly extracts the files from my test. I ran this on a locked-down Win8. Great answer! I put this into a extractMSI. Show 12 more comments. This didn't seem to work for me on win7 x64 with bit 7-Zip. Is there a particular way not drag-drop you have to tell it to open the file? There should be an option of 7zip in the context menu when you right click the file - it will give you the option to extract the files — Shekhar.

Download Microsoft Edge More info. Contents Exit focus mode. Is this page helpful? Please rate your experience Yes No. Any additional feedback? Submit and view feedback for This product This page. Windows Installer files are known as MSI files because of the file extension.

Windows Installer files are used extensively by Microsoft for updating and installing Windows and other related software. Software components for Windows Installer are integrated into Windows as standard and MSI packages can be used by system administrators and over networks for remote installations.

An MSI file is often embedded inside an executable setup installer so its usage is invisible to the end user. If you are having issues installing a software package as an MSI file or want to get at the files inside, perhaps to make a program portable, there are ways to do it. Here we show you 6 solutions for viewing or extracting the contents of MSI install packages. Although an MSI installer file is more like a database than an archive, some archiving software can still read and extract its contents.

Do note that this option is likely to be the least reliable option. Probably the most popular free archiving utility, 7-Zip, is able to read and extract the contents of many MSI files. Download 7-Zip. A specialist tool to extract the contents of windows Installer files should be the most effective and give the best results. A portable and free utility designed specifically for the task of viewing and extracting files from MSI installer packages is LessMSI a.

In addition to extracting files, the program also has some additional tabs to view the data tables from the package and to view the summary information stored inside the package dates, languages, version numbers, publisher, and etc. Browse or drop an MSI installer onto the window and the contents will be shown. We found LessMSI very effective at reading and extracting more tricky MSI files where other options occasionally failed to read the whole contents.

Also included in the zip archive is a command line version of LessMSI so you can extract an installer from Command Prompt or a script.