Does anyone know a good MSI Log Viewer?

Question

Fairly simple question, does anyone know of good utility for browsing msi log files?

Be interested in anything that provides filtering, a nice view of different standard and custom actions, action sequencing, properties, and errors.

Thanks.

Answer 1

I found the tip from Rob Mensching about the first thing to look for in the MSI log very useful, much more useful than any tool for log viewing. To be honest, I rarely have to look for anything beyond this.

As for the true log file parsing, only the verbose log file contains enough info to understand what's going on, hence if you need to walk through (a big part of) the whole process of the installation (not only a place the error occurs in), be ready to read the log line by line, because almost every line matters, as well as the sequence. If you need to track the value of the property, just open the log file and Ctrl+F that property name to see its evolution during the installation.

BTW, do you know that WiX can be even more verbose? :-)

Answer 2

Have you tried Wilogutl.exe?

Also, see this article for a basic usage: http://dennisbareis.com/makemsi-manual/view_verbose_msi_log.htm

Here's another good one: http://www.hoschi.biz/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=44&Itemid=53