MAKEMSI quickly and reliably creates MSI files in a non-programmatic way\Tips and TricksToolsInstall Watch PRO

---

Install Watch PRO

This tool takes a snapshot of your computer and will then analyse differences after.

It will help identify changes made by any installation process.

This tool is free and generally works very well, you can download it from "http://www.epsilonsquared.com/installwatch.htm".

Other similar tools are listed at my "setup capture tools links" page.

The "SysInternals" site is one of my favourite sites and has many free tools (such as "FileMon.exe" and "RegMon.exe") which can help identify install activity and diagnose issues such as missing files and registry.

Monitoring without any tools other than a comparison tool ("WinMerge.EXE" or perhaps your eyes!) is possible. Registry can be exported in text format (its sorted) with many tools including "REGEDIT.EXE" and a sorted file listing can be created with "dir c:\ /s /on /a >somefile.txt". My "IisDumpMetaBase.VBS" can produce a text file representing all or part of an IIS metabase. Do not ignore the possibilites of text comparison! In some situations this is actually the easiest approach!

Please email me any feedback, additional information or corrections. See this page online (look for updates) MAKEMSI© is (C)opyright Dennis Bareis 2003-2008 (All rights reserved). Saturday November 15 2008 at 2:05pm Visit MAKEMSI's Home Page