msidump

commandline utility for dumping MSI database information of the specified MSI file into an XML file format. it also dumps the Summary Information Stream info and provides an option to compare or diff 2 msidump XML files. this tool was created to help build test engineers in doing static analysis of the MSI builds esp in detecting changes in between MSI builds. it was also found to be very useful in detecting regressions i.e. changes being accidentally removed from the build etc...

Usage:

msidump.exe [/f] msiPath [/t table1;table2...] [/l table;store] [/x xslFilePath] [/o outputDirectory]

Options:

• msiPath - MSI file to dump. (Required)
• [/l table|store] list of table or storage names. (Optional)
• [/t table1;table2...] MSI tables to dump. (Optional)
• [/a store1;store2...] apply specified embedded MSTs. (Optional)
• [/e mstfile1;mstfile2...] apply specified external MST file/s. (Optional)
• [/x xslFilePath] XML Stylesheet file path. (Optional)
• [/n outputFileName] output filename. (Optional)
• [/o outputDirectory] output directory. (Optional)
• [/b] Suppress summary information stream dump.
• [/d n1=path1 n2=path2...] diffMode: compares two msidump XML files. n1, n2 should be unique short names.

Example:

$>msidump c:\tmp\mps.msi

 dumps all tables and transform views to the same directory as the msi file.

$>msidump /d RTM=mps_rtm.msi.xml B05=mps_b05.msi.xml

 dumps all the changes made on the tables between RTM and B05.