The challenge of creating mst files
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Say you have an msi file and need to modify the way it works. You could edit the msi file directly, changing the details of how it runs when executed. In that case, the changes would affect anyone who ran it from that point forward. Which might be acceptable, but if you want to tailor that same installation file to operate differently depending on who executes it, then you will want the ability to modify how the installation runs without touching that original installer.
This is done by creating mst files that apply to each scenario in your deployment. It may sound like a challenge, but creating mst files does not have to be that major of an undertaking. One might suspect that it would require programming language knowledge, but that simply is not the case. There are several tools available for use when creating mst files. These tools are programs that work by creating mst files from scratch using a graphical interface. This interface allows you to select registry settings, DLL file types and other characteristics in an mst package. I also allow the use of wizards for creating mst files. These wizards walk you through the process.
Templates also exist in some of these programs that will guide you through common configuration types, depending on what your goal is and what type of msi you are transforming. Whether or not the wizard or templates would benefit you depends entirely on your specific case. It may be that you will end up creating mst files manually. Even if that ends up being the case, while it is not as simple as creating a picture file, creating mst files is something that with the proper tools and experience that can ultimately be accomplished with a reasonable amount of time and effort.
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