Версия windows installer последняя версия

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This article is about the Microsoft Windows component. For the installation of the operating system itself, see Windows Setup.

Windows Installer

Help screen of Windows Installer 5.0 running on Windows 11.
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Initial release	31 August 1999; 24 years ago
Final release	5.0 / 22 July 2009; 14 years ago[1]
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Platform	IA-32, x86-64, ARM32, ARM64, Itanium
Included with	Windows 2000 and later
Type	Installer
License	Freeware
Website	docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/msi/windows-installer-portal

Windows Installer Package^[2]

Filename extension	.msi, .msp
Internet media type	application/x-ole-storage
Developed by	Microsoft
Type of format	Archive
Container for	Installation information and an optional .cab file payload
Extended from	COM Structured Storage
Open format?	No

Windows Installer (msiexec.exe, previously known as Microsoft Installer,^[3] codename Darwin)^[4][5] is a software component and application programming interface (API) of Microsoft Windows used for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software. The installation information, and optionally the files themselves, are packaged in installation packages, loosely relational databases structured as COM Structured Storages and commonly known as «MSI files», from their default filename extensions. The packages with the file extensions mst contain Windows Installer «Transformation Scripts», those with the msm extensions contain «Merge Modules» and the file extension pcp is used for «Patch Creation Properties».^[6] Windows Installer contains significant changes from its predecessor, Setup API. New features include a GUI framework and automatic generation of the uninstallation sequence. Windows Installer is positioned as an alternative to stand-alone executable installer frameworks such as older versions of InstallShield and NSIS.

Before the introduction of Microsoft Store (then named Windows Store), Microsoft encouraged third parties to use Windows Installer as the basis for installation frameworks, so that they synchronize correctly with other installers and keep the internal database of installed products consistent. Important features such as rollback and versioning depend on a consistent internal database for reliable operation. Furthermore, Windows Installer facilitates the principle of least privilege by performing software installations by proxy for unprivileged users.

Logical structure of packages[edit]

A package describes the installation of one or more full products and is universally identified by a GUID. A product is made up of components, grouped into features. Windows Installer does not handle dependencies between products.

Products[edit]

A single, installed, working program (or set of programs) is a product. A product is identified by a unique GUID (the ProductCode property) providing an authoritative identity throughout the world. The GUID, in combination with the version number (ProductVersion property), allows for release management of the product’s files and registry keys.

A package includes the package logic and other metadata that relates to how the package executes when running. For example, changing an EXE file in the product may require the ProductCode or ProductVersion to be changed for the release management. However, merely changing or adding a launch condition (with the product remaining exactly the same as the previous version) would still require the PackageCode to change for release management of the MSI file itself.

Features[edit]

A feature is a hierarchical group of components. A feature may contain any number of components and other sub-features. Smaller packages can consist of a single feature. More complex installers may display a «custom setup» dialog box, from which the user can select which features to install or remove.

The package author defines the product features. A word processor, for example, might place the program’s core file into one feature, and the program’s help files, optional spelling checker and stationery modules into additional features.

Components[edit]

A component is the basic unit of a product. Each component is treated by Windows Installer as a unit. The installer cannot install just part of a component.^[7] Components can contain program files, folders, COM components, registry keys, and shortcuts. The user does not directly interact with components.

Components are identified globally by GUIDs; thus the same component can be shared among several features of the same package or multiple packages, ideally through the use of Merge Modules.

Key paths[edit]

A key path is a specific file, registry key, or ODBC data source that the package author specifies as critical for a given component. Because a file is the most common type of key path, the term key file is commonly used. A component can contain at most one key path; if a component has no explicit key path, the component’s destination folder is taken to be the key path. When an MSI-based program is launched, Windows Installer checks the existence of key paths. If there is a mismatch between the current system state and the value specified in the MSI package (e.g., a key file is missing), the related feature is re-installed. This process is known as self-healing or self-repair. No two components should use the same key path.

Developing installer packages[edit]

Creating an installer package for a new application is not trivial. It is necessary to specify which files must be installed, to where and with what registry keys. Any non-standard operations can be done using Custom Actions, which are typically developed in DLLs. There are a number of commercial and freeware products to assist in creating MSI packages, including Visual Studio (natively up to VS 2010,^[8] with an extension on newer VS versions^[9]), InstallShield and WiX. To varying degrees, the user interface and behavior may be configured for use in less common situations such as unattended installation. Once prepared, an installer package is «compiled» by reading the instructions and files from the developer’s local machine, and creating the .msi file.

The user interface (dialog boxes) presented at the start of installation can be changed or configured by the setup engineer developing a new installer. There is a limited language of buttons, text fields and labels which can be arranged in a sequence of dialogue boxes. An installer package should be capable of running without any UI, for what is called «unattended installation».

ICE validation[edit]

Microsoft provides a set of Internal Consistency Evaluators (ICE) that can be used to detect potential problems with an MSI database.^[10] The ICE rules are combined into CUB files, which are stripped-down MSI files containing custom actions that test the target MSI database’s contents for validation warnings and errors. ICE validation can be performed with the Platform SDK tools Orca and msival2, or with validation tools that ship with the various authoring environments.

For example, some of the ICE rules are:

• ICE09: Validates that any component destined for the System folder is marked as being permanent.
• ICE24: Validates that the product code, product version, and product language have appropriate formats.
• ICE33: Validates that the Registry table is not used for data better suited for another table (Class, Extension, Verb, and so on).

Addressing ICE validation warnings and errors is an important step in the release process.

Versions[edit]

Version	Included with[1]	Also available for
1.0	Office 2000	—
1.1	Windows 2000 RTM, SP1, SP2 Office XP[11]	Windows 95, Windows 98 Windows NT 4.0
1.2	Windows Me	—
2.0	Windows XP RTM, SP1 Windows 2000 SP3, SP4 Windows Server 2003 RTM	Windows 9x Windows NT 4.0 Windows 2000
3.0	Windows XP SP2	Windows 2000 with at least SP3 Windows XP Windows Server 2003
3.1	Windows XP SP3 Windows Server 2003 SP1, SP2 Windows XP Professional x64 Edition	Windows 2000 with at least SP3 Windows XP Windows Server 2003
4.0	Windows Vista RTM, SP1 Windows Server 2008 RTM	—
4.5[12]	Windows Vista SP2 Windows Server 2008 SP2	Windows XP with at least SP2 Windows Server 2003 with at least SP1 Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Windows Vista Windows Server 2008[13]
5.0	Windows 7 and later Windows Server 2008 R2 and later	—

See also[edit]

• APPX – Software package format used on Microsoft’s Windows Store
• App-V – Software package format used for virtualization and streaming
• .exe
• List of installation software
• Package management system
• Windows Installer CleanUp Utility
• Windows Package Manager
• ZAP file – a way to perform an application installation when no MSI file exists

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Official website

Основная задача программы заключается в том, чтобы операционная система Windows работала быстро и оперативно. Используется для обновления компонентов.

This article is about the Microsoft Windows component. For the installation of the operating system itself, see Windows Setup.

The Windows Installer (msiexec.exe, previously known as Microsoft Installer^[1]) is a software component and application programming interface (API) used for the installation, maintenance, and removal of software on modern Microsoft Windows systems. The installation information, and often the files themselves, are packaged in installation packages, loosely relational databases structured as OLE COM Structured Storages and commonly known as «MSI files», from their default file extension. Windows Installer contains significant changes from its predecessor, Setup API. New features include a GUI framework and automatic generation of the uninstallation sequence. Windows Installer is positioned as an alternative to stand-alone executable installer frameworks such as older versions of InstallShield and Wise (later versions of both products are based on Windows Installer) and NSIS.

Microsoft encourages third parties to use Windows Installer as the basis for installation frameworks, so that they synchronize correctly with other installers and keep the internal database of installed products consistent. Important features such as rollback and versioning depend on a consistent internal database for reliable operation.

Logical structure of packages[]

A package describes the installation of one or more full products (Windows Installer does not handle dependencies between products) and is universally identified by a GUID (the PackageCode property). A product is made up of components, grouped into features.

Products[]

A single, installed, working program (or set of programs) is a product.
A product is identified by a unique GUID (the ProductCode property).
A product is not the same as a package: a single MSI package might install multiple different products.

For example, an MSI might install French and English versions of a program, each of which is a different product.

Components[]

A component is the minimal part of a product—each component is treated by Windows Installer as a unit: the install developer cannot, for example, use a condition to specify to install just part of a component. Components can contain files, directories, COM components, registry keys, shortcuts, and other data. The end user does not directly interact with components.

Components are identified globally by GUIDs, thus the same component can be shared among several features of the same package or multiple packages, ideally through the use of Merge Modules (although, for this to work correctly, different components should not share any sub-components).

Key paths[]

A key path is a specific file, registry key, or ODBC data source that the package author specifies as critical for a given component. Because a file is the most common type of key path, the term key file is commonly used. A component can contain at most one key path; if a component has no explicit key path, the component’s destination directory is taken to be the key path. When an MSI-based application is launched, Windows Installer checks the existence of these critical files or registry keys (that is, the key paths). If there is a mismatch between the current system state and the value specified in the MSI package (e.g., a key file is missing), then the related feature is re-installed. This process is also known as self-healing or self-repair. No two components should use the same key path.

Features[]

A feature is a hierarchical group of components—a feature can contain any number of components and other features (a feature contained in another feature is called a «subfeature»). Many software packages only involve one feature. More complex installation programs usually display a «custom setup» dialog box at run time, from which the end user can select which features to install or remove.

The package author defines the product features. A word-processing program, for example, might provide features for the main program executable, the program’s help files, and optional spelling checker and stationery modules.

Setup phases[]

User interface[]

The user interface phase typically queries the target system and displays an installation wizard and enables the user to change various options that will affect the installation.

However, the user interface sequence should not make any changes to the system. Three reasons for this are as follows.

1. A user can install an MSI package in quiet mode, bypassing this phase entirely, by running the msiexec.exe command-line utility with the /qn (or /qb or /qr) option and specifying on the command line all the information that the wizard would normally gather. Therefore, any actions that occur in the user interface sequence will not be performed during a silent installation.
2. Similarly, clicking the Remove button in the Add or Remove Programs panel runs a product’s uninstaller with a basic user interface, again with the result that any actions that occur in the user interface sequence will not be performed.
3. Actions that make system changes should not be scheduled in the user interface sequence as the user interface sequence runs with user privileges, and not with elevated privileges, as described in the following section.

Actions in the user interface sequence of a normal installation are defined in the InstallUISequence table. Similarly, there is an AdminUISequence in which you can place dialog boxes and actions to display and perform from within an administrative installation wizard.

Execute[]

When the user clicks the Finish or Install button in a typical MSI installation wizard, installation proceeds to the Execute phase, in which software components are actually installed. The Execute phase makes system changes, but does not display any user-interface elements.

Execute phase happens in two steps:

Immediate mode. In this phase, Windows Installer receives instructions, either from a user or an application, to install or uninstall features of a product. The requests cause the execution of sequences of actions, which query the installation database to build an internal script describing the execution phase in detail.

Deferred mode. In this phase, the script built in immediate mode is executed in the context of the privileged Windows Installer service (specifically, the LocalSystem account). The script must be executed by a privileged account because of the heterogeneity of the scenarios in which a setup operation is initiated—for example, elevated privileges are necessary to serve on-demand installation requests from non-privileged users. (In order to run with elevated privileges, however, the package must be deployed by a local administrator or advertised by a system administrator using Group Policy.)

Execute sequence actions for a normal installation are stored in the InstallExecuteSequence table. An MSI database can also contain AdminExecuteSequence and AdvtExecuteSequence tables to define actions to perform for administrative and advertised installations.

Rollback[]

All installation operations are transactional.^[2] For each operation that Windows Installer performs, it generates an equivalent undo operation that would undo the change made to the system. In case any script action fails during deferred execution, or the operation is cancelled by the user, all the actions performed until that point are rolled back, restoring the system to its original state. Standard Windows Installer actions automatically write information into a rollback script; package authors who create custom actions that change the target system should also create corresponding rollback actions (as well as uninstallation actions and uninstallation-rollback actions). As a design feature, if applied correctly this mechanism will also rollback a failed uninstall of an application to a good working state.

Other features[]

Advertisement[]

Windows Installer can advertise a product rather than actually installing it.^[3] The product will appear installed to the user, but it will not actually be installed until it is run for the first time by triggering an entry point (by means of a Start menu shortcut, by opening a document that the product is configured to handle, or by invoking an advertised COM class). A package can be advertised by an administrator using Group Policy or other deployment mechanism, or by running the msiexec executable with the /jm (for per-machine advertisement) or /ju (for per-user advertisement) switch. It should also be noted that some MSI packages authored in Installshield may prevent the use of these and other Native MSI features.

What is not known by most is that the user must have administrator privileges to complete this advertised installation. In most workplaces, end users are not administrators and this method of distribution will fail. Microsoft created a workaround via Group Policies to «Elevate user privileges» during MSI installations. Administrators have since seen this GPO setting as a security hole since any MSI would automatically gain administrator privileges.

Installation on demand[]

Similar to advertisement, it consists in the installation of features as soon as the user tries to use them.^[4] Again, depending on how the features need to be installed, the end-user may have to be an administrator on the PC for the feature to install.

Administrative installation[]

An administrative installation creates an uncompressed source image for a product, typically to be used for installing or running an application from a network location.^[5] An administrative installation is not a typical installation, in that it does not create any shortcuts, register COM servers, create an Add or Remove Programs entry, and so on. Often an administrative installation enables a user to install the product in such a way that its features run from the uncompressed installation source.

Administrative installations are also useful when creating a Windows Installer patch, which requires uncompressed images of the earlier and current versions of a product in order to compute binary file differences. An administrative installation is performed by running the msiexec executable with the /a switch.

Custom Actions[]

The developer of an installer package may write code to serve their own purpose, delivered in a DLL. This can be executed during the installation sequences, including when the user clicks a button in the user interface, or during the InstallExecuteSequence. Custom Actions typically validate product license keys, or initialise more complex services. Developers should normally provide inverse custom actions for use during uninstallation.

Msiexec provides a way to break after loading a specified custom action DLL but before invoking the action.[2]

Merge Modules and Nested Executables[]

A Windows Installer package may contain another package to be installed at the same time. These are ideally provided as a .msm file component, but may also be a separate executable program which will be unpacked from the installer package during the InstallExecuteSequence and can be run immediately. The file can then optionally be deleted before the end of the InstallExecuteSequence, and so is ideal for using with older installers.

Miscellaneous[]

Windows Installer allows applications to run directly from a network share, without the need for a local copy (run from source); it can repair broken installations by restoring damaged or deleted files, registry entries and application shortcuts; it supports per-user installation of applications; it can resolve component identifiers into paths, allowing applications to avoid hard-coded file paths; and it natively supports patches (.msp files made out of patch creation properties) and other customizations of packages through manipulations (transforms or .mst files) of a package’s relational database. Version 2.0 onwards, it supports digital signatures and version 3.0 onwards, delta compression for patches.

It is also unique among installation software frameworks for Windows in that it is highly transparent. The full API and all command-line options are documented; packages are freely viewable and editable, both with free tools and programmatically (as opposed to the proprietary and even weakly encrypted packages of InstallShield); and the format for file archives is the well documented cabinet file format.

Windows Vista[]

Windows Installer 4.0, which was shipped with Windows Vista, incorporates new capabilities to take advantage of Vista’s User Account Control architecture. MSI packages can be marked as not requiring elevated privileges to install, thus allowing a package to install without prompting the user for Administrator credentials. Windows Installer also works in conjunction with the Restart Manager; when installing or updating an application or system component with «full» user interface mode, the user will be displayed a list of affected applications that can be shut down, and then restarted after files have been updated. Installer actions running in silent mode perform these application restarts automatically. System services and tray applications can also be restarted in this manner.

Developing Installer Packages[]

Creating an installer package for a new application is non-trivial. It is necessary to specify which files must be installed, to where, with what registry keys. Any non-standard operations can be done using Custom Actions, which are typically developed in DLLs. There are a number of commercial and freeware products to assist in creating installers; for example Visual Studio, InstallShield, Installaware, Wise Installer, Advanced Installer and WiX. To varying degrees, the user interface and behaviour in less common situations such as unattended installation, may be configured. Once prepared, an installer package is «compiled» by reading the instructions and files from the developer’s local machine, and creating the .msi file.

The user interface (dialog boxes) presented at the start of installation can be changed or configured by the setup engineer developing a new installer. There is a limited language of buttons, textfields and labels which can be arranged in a sequence of dialogue boxes. An installer package should be capable of running without any UI, for what is called «unattended installation».

ICE validation[]

Microsoft provides a set of Internal Consistency Evaluators, or ICEs, that can be used to detect potential problems with an MSI database.^[6] The ICE rules are combined into CUB files, which are stripped-down MSI files containing custom actions that test the target MSI database’s contents for validation warnings and errors. ICE validation can be performed with the Platform SDK tools Orca and msival2, or with validation tools that ship with the various authoring environments.

For example, some of the ICE rules are:

• ICE09: Validates that any component destined for the System folder is marked as being permanent.
• ICE24: Validates that the product code, product version, and product language have appropriate formats.
• ICE33: Validates that the Registry table is not used for data better suited for another table (Class, Extension, Verb, and so on).

Addressing ICE validation warnings and errors is an important step in the release process.

Versions[]

Version	Included with[7]	Also available for
1.0	Office 2000	—
1.1	Windows 2000 RTM, SP1, SP2	Windows 95/98 Windows NT 4.0 SP6
1.2	Windows Me	—
2.0	Windows XP RTM, SP1 Windows 2000 SP3, SP4 Windows Server 2003 RTM	Windows 95/98/Me Windows NT 4.0 SP6 Windows 2000 RTM, SP1, SP2
3.0	Windows XP SP2	Windows 2000 SP3, SP4 Windows XP RTM, SP1 Windows Server 2003 RTM
3.1	Windows XP SP3 Windows Server 2003 SP1, SP2 Windows XP Professional x64 Edition RTM, SP2	Windows 2000 SP3, SP4 Windows XP RTM, SP1, SP2 Windows Server 2003 RTM
4.0	Windows Vista RTM, SP1 Windows Server 2008 RTM	—
4.5[8]	Windows Vista SP2 Windows Server 2008 SP2	Windows XP SP2, SP3 Windows Server 2003 SP1, SP2 Windows XP Professional x64 Edition RTM, SP2 Windows Vista RTM, SP1 Windows Server 2008 RTM[9]
5.0	Windows 7 RTM Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM	—

To check which version is currently installed, type msiexec /? into the Windows Run box or command prompt.

Tools[]

Name	Description	License
Microsoft Visual Studio	Microsoft Visual Studio is capable of building Windows Installer Deployment projects that can create installer packages.[10]	Proprietary software
Windows Installer Development Tools	Windows Installer Development Tools is a group of 15 tools that are included with Microsoft Windows SDK designed for developers. Included amongst these tools are Orca (a tool for creating and editing MSI files), WILogUtl (a command-line tool that assists in processing Windows Installer log files) and MsiZap (a Windows Installer cleanup utility).[11]	Freeware
Lessmsi	Lessmsi (aka Less Msiérables) is a free software utility allows extracting files from Windows Installer packages as well as viewing detailed information about Windows Installer packages. It includes a graphical user interace as well as a command line interface.	MIT License
WiX	WiX (Windows Installer XML) is a free software set of tools that helps build a Windows Installer packages from an XML document. It can be either used from command-line or integrated into Microsoft Visual Studio.	Common Public License
MSI Factory	MSI Factory is a WiX-based tool for creating MSI based installers from Indigo Rose Software Design Corp.[12]	Proprietary software
msicreate[dead link]	A simple GUI application that can create simple Windows Installer setup programs.	Freeware
MakeMSI	Another free tool that can create Windows Installer setup programs.	Freeware
Scriptomatic	Another free tool that can create Windows Installer setup programs.	Freeware
MsiDiff	A free tool for disassembling and comparing Windows Installer databases.	Freeware
MSI2XML and XML2MSI	A pair of command-line tools that can convert an MSI database to XML file and vice versa.	MIT License
InstEd	A tool for building and editing MSI files	Freeware
MSI Package Builder	A repackaging tool that wraps normal installer packages into a Windows Installer package with the aim of unattended installation over the network via group policy.[13]	Proprietary software
7-Zip	7-Zip is essentially an open source file archiver utility, but can also extract the contents of MSI files.[14]	GNU Lesser General Public License
InstallExplorer	InstallExplorer is a plug-in for Total Commander that enables users to browse the contents of MSI files	Freeware

References[]

External links[]

• Windows installer start page
• Windows Installer Team Blog at MSDN.
  • Windows Installer 4.5 expected around Q2-2008 (blog)
• InstallSite.org «Resources for Setup Developers»: This site publishes a useful released MSI version matrix.
• Windows Installer 4.5 Software Development Kit standalone version, XP & Vista
• Windows Installer 5.0 Software Development Kit standalone for 5.0 not available, only the version integrated with Windows 7 SDK
• Windows Installer at Wikipedia

	Wikipedia (article: Windows Installer ) This page uses Creative Commons Licensed content from Wikipedia (view authors).

Microsoft Windows components
Core	Active Scripting WSH VBScript JScript Aero AutoPlay AutoRun ClearType COM ActiveX ActiveX Document COM Structured storage DCOM OLE OLE Automation Transaction Server Desktop Window Manager DirectX Explorer Graphics Device Interface Imaging Format .NET Framework Search IFilter Saved search Server Message Block Shell Extensions Namespace Special Folders Start menu Start screen Previous Versions Taskbar Windows USER Win32 console XML Paper Specification
Management	Backup and Restore Center cmd.exe Control Panel Applets Device Manager Deployment Toolkit Disk Cleanup Disk Defragmenter Driver Verifier Event Viewer IEAK IExpress Management Console Netsh Problem Reports and Solutions Resource Monitor ‎Sysprep System Policy Editor System Configuration ScanDisk System File Checker System Restore Task Manager WMI Windows Installer Windows PowerShell Windows Update WAIK WinSAT Windows Easy Transfer
Applications	Calculator Character Map Contacts DVD Maker Fax and Scan Internet Explorer Journal Magnifier Media Center Media Player Mobile Device Center Mobility Center Narrator Notepad Paint Windows Photo Viewer Private Character Editor Remote Assistance Windows Desktop Gadgets Snipping Tool Sound Recorder Store Speech Recognition Tablet PC Input Panel WordPad Windows To Go
Games	3D Pinball for Windows — Space Cadet Chess Titans FreeCell Hearts Hover! Hold ‘Em InkBall Mahjong Titans Minesweeper Purble Place Reversi Solitaire Spider Solitaire Microsoft Tinker
Kernel	Ntoskrnl.exe hal.dll System Idle Process Registry DLL EXE NTLDR / Boot Manager Winlogon Recovery Console I/O WinRE WinPE Kernel Patch Protection
Services	SCM BITS Task Scheduler Wireless Zero Configuration Shadow Copy Error Reporting Multimedia Class Scheduler CLFS
File Systems	NTFS Hard link Junction point Mount Point Reparse point Symbolic link TxF EFS WinFS FAT FAT12 FAT16 FAT32 exFAT CDFS UDF DFS IFS
Server	Domains Active Directory DNS Group Policy Roaming user profiles Folder redirection Distributed Transaction Coordinator MSMQ Windows Media Services Rights Management Services IIS Terminal Services WSUS Windows SharePoint Services Network Access Protection PWS DFS Replication Remote Differential Compression Print Services for UNIX Remote Installation Services Windows Deployment Services System Resource Manager Hyper-V
Architecture	NT series architecture Object Manager Startup process Vista/7 I/O request packet Kernel Transaction Manager Logical Disk Manager Security Accounts Manager Windows File Protection / Windows Resource Protection Microsoft Windows library files LSASS CSRSS SMSS MinWin
Security	Action Center BitLocker Defender Data Execution Prevention Mandatory Integrity Control Protected Media Path User Account Control User Interface Privilege Isolation Windows Firewall
Compatibility	command.com Unix POSIX subsystem Interix subsystem Virtual DOS machine Windows on Windows Windows XP Mode WoW64
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Released Versions of Windows Installer

The table in this topic identifies the released versions of the Windows Installer. For more information, see
Operating System Property Values.

Release	Version	Description
Windows Installer 2.0	2.0.2600.0	Released with Windows XP.
Windows Installer 2.0	2.0.2600.1	Released with Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 3 (SP3).
Windows Installer 2.0	2.0.2600.1183	Released with Windows 2000 Server with Service Pack 4 (SP4).
Windows Installer 2.0	2.0.2600.2	Released as a redistributable.
Windows Installer 2.0	2.0.2600.1106	Released with Windows XP with Service Pack 1 (SP1).
Windows Installer 2.0	2.0.3790.0	Released with Windows Server 2003.
Windows Installer 3.0	3.0.3790.2180	Released with Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2). Released as a redistributable.
Windows Installer 3.1	3.1.4000.1823	Released as a redistributable. This version is has the same functionality as version 3.1.4000.2435.
Windows Installer 3.1	3.1.4000.1830	Released with Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows XP Professional x64 Edition. Update this version to version 3.1.4000.2435 to address the issue discussed in KB898628.
Windows Installer 3.1	3.1.4000.3959	Released with Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2 (SP2).
Windows Installer 3.1	3.1.4000.2435	Released with a fix to address the issue discussed in KB898628. This is the latest version of Windows Installer 3.1.
Windows Installer 3.1	3.1.4001.5512	Released with Windows XP with Service Pack 3 (SP3).
Windows Installer 4.0	4.0.6000.16386	Released with Windows Vista.
Windows Installer 4.0	4.0.6001.18000	Released with Windows Vista with Service Pack 1 (SP1) and Windows Server 2008.
Windows Installer 4.5	4.5.6002.18005	Released with Windows Vista with Service Pack 2 (SP2) and Windows Server 2008 with Service Pack (SP2.)
Windows Installer 4.5	4.5.6000.20817	Released as a redistributable for Windows Vista.
Windows Installer 4.5	4.5.6001.22162	Released as a redistributable for Windows Server 2008 and Windows Vista with SP1.
Windows Installer 4.5	4.5.6001.22159	Released as a redistributable for Windows XP with Service Pack 2 (SP2) and later, and Windows Server 2003 with SP1 and later.

Windows Installer 5.0 will be released with Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7.

For information about how to determine the Windows Installer version, see Determining the Windows Installer Version.

For a list of changes in each of the Windows Installer versions, see What’s New in Windows Installer.

For information about obtaining the latest Windows Installer redistributable, see Windows Installer Redistributables.

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Build date: 8/13/2009

Не следует путать с Установка Windows.

Установщик Windows

Тип	программное обеспечение
Разработчик	Microsoft
Операционная система	Windows
Последняя версия	5.0 (22 июля 2009 года [1])
Лицензия	Пользовательское соглашение Microsoft

Windows Installer (установщик Windows) — подсистема Microsoft Windows, обеспечивающая установку программ (инсталлятор). Является компонентом Windows, начиная с Windows 2000; может доустанавливаться и на более ранние версии Windows. Вся необходимая для установки информация (иногда и вместе с устанавливаемыми файлами) содержится в установочных пакетах (installation packages), имеющих расширение .msi.

История[]

Windows Installer был разработан в 1995—1998 годах и имел вначале кодовое название Darwin. Ранние версии назывались Microsoft Installer, отсюда стандартное расширение файла инсталляционного пакета — .msi.^[2]

Первая версия Installer’а вышла в начале 1999 в качестве инсталлятора Microsoft Office 2000. В конце того же года Installer стал частью Windows 2000. Майкрософт всячески поощрял переход разработчиков на новый инсталлятор, включив в список требований к программам, желающим получить так называемый знак Windows 2000 Logo, требование устанавливаться с помощью Windows Installer.

Windows Installer оказался значительным шагом вперёд по отношению к предыдущему инсталлятору Microsoft — Setup API (ACME Setup): в нём были введены возможности GUI, поддержка деинсталляции и отката в любой момент установки (включая откат во время деинсталляции), корректная работа с правами доступа в Windows и другие возможности, что сделало его сильной альтернативой различным существовавшим на рынке инсталляционным пакетам.

Логическая структура пакета[]

Инсталляционный пакет описывает установку одного продукта и имеет свой GUID. Продукт состоит из компонентов (components) (тоже имеющих свои GUIDы), сгруппированных в возможности (features).

Компонент (component) — минимальная неделимая установочная единица, представляющая собой группу файлов, значений реестра, создаваемых папок и других элементов, объединённых общим именем (именем компоненты) и либо устанавливаемых вместе, либо не устанавливаемых. Компоненты скрыты от конечного пользователя. Каждая компонента имеет ключевой путь (key path) — например, имя своего главного файла — по которому определяется наличие этой компоненты на компьютере пользователя.

Возможность (feature; в русифицированной версии Windows именно это слово переводится как «компонента», что вносит путаницу) — это иерархическая группа компонент и/или других возможностей. Когда при установке показывается диалог выбора устанавливаемых частей программы, пользователь управляет выбором именно возможностей. Выбор возможности для установки влечёт за собой установку всех компонентов, которые в неё включены.

Физическая структура пакета[]

Файл .msi представляет собой составной документ OLE (OLE compound document — в том же формате-контейнере хранятся документы Microsoft Word,Excel и т. д.), в котором содержится небольшая реляционная база данных — набор из нескольких десятков взаимосвязанных таблиц, содержащих различную информацию о продукте и процессе установки. При этом все строковые данные в базе хранятся вместе в отдельном потоке документа, а в таблицах базы на них имеются ссылки; таким образом избегают дублирования строк, что значительно уменьшает размер базы.

Кроме базы, структура файла .msi предусматривает помещение туда пользовательских сценариев и вспомогательных DLL, если таковые требуются для установки, а также самих устанавливаемых файлов, запакованных в формате .cab. Файлы можно размещать и отдельно от пакета, в запакованном или распакованном виде (с сохранением структуры каталогов).

Процесс установки[]

Процесс установки состоит из нескольких этапов — сбора информации, выполнения (собственно установки), а также, возможно, отката (в случае ошибки или отмены установки пользователем).

Действия[]

Каждый этап установки состоит из последовательности действий (actions), записанной в базе данных. Действиям присвоены номера, определяющие порядок их выполнения, а иногда — и условия, при которых действия выполняются или не выполняются.

Большая часть действий — это стандартные действия, характерные для типичного процесса сбора информации и установки. Все эти действия документированы, кроме них, пользователь может определить и свои действия (custom actions).

Действия, определённые пользователем, могут быть либо написаны на одном из скриптовых языков, встроенных в операционную систему (JScript илиVBScript так же и Eclipse, побочный язык от C++), либо размещаться в специально созданной DLL (написанной на таких языках, как C, C++ и т. д.). Файлы с этими действиями помещаются внутрь файла .msi и извлекаются оттуда в начале запуска инсталляции.

Сбор информации[]

На этапе сбора информации Windows Installer собирает инструкции (либо путём взаимодействия с пользователем, либо программным путём) установить или удалить одну или несколько возможностей, входящих в продукт. Эти инструкции в дальнейшем формируют на основе базы данных внутренний сценарий, детально описывающий последующий этап выполнения.

Этот этап называют также непосредственным режимом (immediate mode).

Выполнение[]

К началу этого этапа инсталлятор генерирует внутренний сценарий, предназначенный для выполнения без вмешательства пользователя. Этот сценарий выполняется инсталлятором в привилегированном режиме службы NT (конкретно — под аккаунтом LocalSystem). Привилегированный режим требуется из-за того, что инсталляция могла быть запущена пользователем, не обладающим необходимыми правами для изменения системных параметров и файлов (хотя право установить программу ему было предоставлено).

Этот этап иногда называется отложенным режимом (deferred mode).

Откат[]

Если какое-либо из действий, определённых в сценарии, оканчивается неудачей, или установка в процессе отменяется пользователем, все действия, выполненные до этого места, откатываются, возвращая систему в состояние, бывшее до установки. Откат обеспечивается наличием для каждого действия, вносящего изменение в систему, обратного к нему. Вводя в пакет нестандартные действия, программист также должен создать обратные к ним для правильной работы отката.

Прочие возможности[]

Анонсирование и установка по требованию[]

Журнал установки[]