Free MSI Authoring tools

Question

Are there any free / open source tools that can be used to create an advanced MSI installer.

I've found the following list of MSI authoring tools, however I know very little about MSI technology and its hard to tell from that list which of those tools can actually be used to create new MSI installers from scratch (as opposed to simply viewing or editing existing installers)

Answer 1

I prefer using WiX for creating MSI installer. Maybe it's not the easiest way to generate an MSI (because its XML-based), but its free and you will find a lot of template scripts in the internet. A script base tool like WiX doesn't need to be a disadvantage at all, its perfect for automated builds.

Also as far as i know Visual Studio 2010 should support WiX out of the box.

Answer 2

Advanced Installer has an edition which is free forever. It allows you to create Simple projects, as in the linked tutorial.

The same project type can also be integrated with the Visual Studio extension which is also free.

The advantage is that Advanced Installer provides a high level, easy to use, GUI for building and customizing the installer. Learning it is much easier. The projects are XML files, but they are not related with the XML format from Wix. (however, you can import your Wix projects, so you don't start over from scratch)

Unlike Wix, Advanced Installer also has commercial editions. All are available in the same application, so you don't need to download a separate SKU to get the free version.

It can create MSI packages from scratch but it can also edit existing MSI packages. The same for AppX and App-V packages.

Disclaimer: I work in the team building Advanced Installer, see my profile for more details.