Programmatically installing MSI packages

Question

I would like to install a given .msi package programmatically from my C# .NET application, preferably with the installation parameters that my application specifies (like the installation path, decline crapware, etc.).

I did some searches, but I haven't really found anything useful. The most promising hit was this topic, but I cannot find any documentation of Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller or of WindowsInstaller.Installer for that matter.

Answer 1

I find the Deployment Tools Foundation project mentioned above to be a solid way to do this from .NET. Having referenced Microsoft.Deployment.WindowsInstaller.dll, use code like this to install a package:

Installer.SetInternalUI(InstallUIOptions.Silent);
Installer.InstallProduct(msiFilename, "ACTION=INSTALL ALLUSERS=2 MSIINSTALLPERUSER=");

The documentation for the .NET wrapper is in a .chm file in the Windows Installer XML installation directory in Program Files. Some parts of that DLL loosely wrap the native Windows APIs so the documentation here can be useful as well, which is how I worked out the string in the above snippet to suit my situation.