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WINDOWS INSTALLER
Obtaining and installing the Microsoft Installer
You can obtain the Microsoft Windows Installer 2.0 for Windows 9x from Microsoft's
Download Center. The file you'll want, InstMsiA.exe, is only 1.7 MB in size,
so it should download very quickly. You can either save the file to your
workstation or open it from the Web site.
There are no gotchas when installing the Installer. When you run InstMsiA.exe,
it automatically updates your Windows 9x workstation. When you reboot the
workstation, it makes a few additional modifications, but that's essentially it.
Once you've installed it, there's no way to remove it. It runs as a built-in
service for Windows 98.
The Microsoft Installer first appeared with Windows 2000. Microsoft updated it
to version 2.0 with Windows XP. If you're using an older version of Windows,
like Windows 98 or Windows ME, in your organization, then MSI files won't work
by default. Windows 9x won't know what to do with them. Fortunately, Microsoft
has created a version of the Microsoft Installer 2.0 for Windows 9.x
Microsoft first created MSI files in conjunction with the Microsoft Installer to help ease the pain of DLL hell. Regular setup programs can overwrite system DLLs or install a version of a DLL that duplicates, but is incompatible, with a version previously installed by another application. The Microsoft Installer, in conjunction with an MSI package, helps prevent this from happening