Parse MSI installers by call MSI database [C#]

Purpose: Parse MSI installer, to get information such as product name, product code, properties etc.

MSI is a standard windows install techonoly, so there are APIs for developers to access. But they are c/c++ methods, instead of C#. After google, i found the ‘Wrapping the Windows Installer 2.0 API’(http://www.codeproject.com/KB/cs/msiinterop.aspx), which is can let .net developers access MSI api easily.

After download the library, you can visit MSI datatable like this

 1:  using System;

 2:  using WindowsInstaller;

 3:   

 4:  namespace MsiTest

 5:  {

 6:      class Program

 7:      {

 8:          static void Main(string[] args)

 9:          {

10:              test("c:\\xxx.msi");

11:          }

12:   

13:          private static void test(string fileName)

14:          {

15:              IntPtr databasePtr;

16:              var retDatabase = MsiInterop.MsiOpenDatabase(fileName, MsiDbPersistMode.ReadOnly, out databasePtr);

17:   

18:              IntPtr viewPtr;

19:              var ret = MsiInterop.MsiDatabaseOpenView(databasePtr, "SELECT Value FROM Property where Property = 'SecureCustomProperties'", out viewPtr);

20:   

21:              IntPtr recordPtr = IntPtr.Zero;

22:              ret = MsiInterop.MsiViewExecute(viewPtr, IntPtr.Zero);

23:              ret = MsiInterop.MsiViewFetch(viewPtr, ref recordPtr);

24:   

25:              uint buffer_length = 2550;

26:              string return_buffer = new string(' ', (int)buffer_length);

27:              MsiInterop.MsiRecordGetString(recordPtr, 1, return_buffer, ref buffer_length);

28:              MsiInterop.MsiCloseAllHandles();

29:   

30:              Console.WriteLine(return_buffer.Trim());

31:          }

32:   

33:      }

34:  }

35:   

36: