MAKEMSI quickly and reliably creates MSI files in a non-programmatic way\Tips and Tricks_Storages

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_Storages (sub storages)

The "_Storages" table is used in a few very limited ways by Windows installer. It is used to imbed OLE storages into Windows Installer databases, these can not be extracted with normal Windows Installer methods. If you need to be able to read them use the "_Streams" or "Binary" tables.

There are two Windows Installer SDK utilities that you may wish to use for diagnostic purposes:

1. WiSubStg.VBS
   This utility can add or delete sub-storages from an MSI. It can also list any storages the MSI contains.

2. MsiDB.EXE
   This utility can add or delete sub-storages from an MSI. It can also extract sub-storages.

You will get error 2213 if you try to add a file with an invalid format (non-Windows Installer?).

EXAMPLE

The following code shows how an MSI can be imbedded as a sub storage. It is only complicated slighty by the default "_Validation" table not having entries for the "_Storages" table (so we need to ignore any "MISSINGDATA" error messages).

<$Table "_Storages" CREATE="N">
   <$Row Name="AnMsi" Data="c:\tmp\AN.MSI" @Validate="NEW -MISSINGDATA">
<$/Table>

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