FAQWhat is Desktop Authority MSI Studio?
Desktop Authority MSI Studio is a comprehensive application packaging solution that gives administrators and software packagers the ability to quickly and easily create, edit, customise and build MSI packages.
What is an MSI?
MSI files are Microsoft's Windows Installer files. A single MSI can contain the files to be installed, the setup application, and the customisations to the setup, giving Windows administrators a simple method to deploy standardized applications.
What can I package with Desktop Authority MSI Studio?
Desktop Authority MSI Studio can package legacy applications into MSI files, repackage existing MSIs, create transforms (which customise the options during an installation) and even compare existing MSI packages.
Does Desktop Authority MSI Studio require a client installation?
No. All packaging is performed centrally with Installer Design Studio remotely monitoring a reference machine where the application to be mass deployed is being installed.
Why should I package applications?
Creating a packaged application ensures an application is deployed consistently throughout the enterprise. Additionally, when creating a package, you can validate, and even test deploy to ensure reliability of the deployment. No user interaction would be required (unless specified when creating the package) to deploy the application.
What is MCE validation?
MCE validation is Desktop Authority MSI Studio's faster implementation of Microsoft's ICE (Internal Consistency Evaluators) validation. MCE more rapidly determines errors with greater efficiency and links the errors directly to the MSI table entries for faster fixing of the problems.
I noticed Desktop Authority MSI Studio requires the .NET framework 1.1. Will all MSI files created require the .NET framework?
No – Windows only requires the Windows Installer Runtime to process MSIfiles. The Windows Installer Runtime is updated through Service Packs and Windows Update. | 
