f13.net

Anyone know of a good, easy one ?  Also, Free would be a bonus too.

 :-D

You can use the Nullsoft Install System (http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page) - it's open source and free.

If you want to edit your MSIs later on, there's Orca (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/255905), which is a giant pain in the ass to use. I've never tried to create a new MSI with Orca, so I have no idea if it's possible.

I'm going to warn you right off the bat that MSI is a black art and has rent asunder the souls of many a hopeful young man.

Am I missing something?  I haven't tried to create a package in a long time but isn't there a wizard built into Visual Studios that you pretty much click through, pick some libraries to include and then your done?

I recall fiddling around with that in the late 90s and remember it being a royal pain in the ass. Also, who says he has a $800 piece of software laying about? You can develop on Windows in Python, or with gcc + GTK. It's just a little harder to get started outside the playpen.

There goes my lurk tag.

Most of the MSI packagers suck. 

My preference goes to any manager that can take a before/after snapshot and create an MSI of the difference.  I find they are the easiest to use.  The problem is that easy costs money.

I use WinINSTALL (http://www.attachmate.com/en-US/Products/PC+Lifecycle+Management/msi-packager-pro.htm) at work.  It's probably one of the better ones out there but you would expect better from a program which is horrendously expensive.  There is an evaluation version that will allow you to build and edit non-crippled MSI files.  If you are looking at doing a quick or one off MSI it might be worth the download.  WinINSTALL LE used to ship for free with Windows 2000 Server so you *might* be able to find a version out there.  I'm pretty sure the LE never did before/after snapshots though.  It's been a while since I used LE; It may not allow you to edit the MSI package.  If you get that far you will find out pretty quickly.

You might want to take a look at MakeMSI (http://dennisbareis.com/makemsi.htm) as well.  Warning: Colour scheme is awful.  He has some decent documentation on there and it may be what you are looking for.

If your program is simple enough (ie: only registry/.ini changes), just get a snapshot program (InCTRL comes to mind) and build a .reg file with your changes and avoid the mess that is Orca.

Edit: apparently the forum code auto-attaches http://

InnoSetup doesn't create MSI files (that I know of) but it's a free open source install wizard written in Delphi.