PowerShell Tip : Extract contents of an MSI

Every once in a while I need to extract the content of a .msi file in order to customize a deployment for a particular network environment. Using the MSIexec I can specify the administrative options to extract the package contents to a target folder. For a better management, I've created a PowerShell function to do the same.

Function Export-MsiContents

{

       [CmdletBinding()]

       param

       (

              [Parameter(Mandatory = $true, Position=0)]

        [ValidateNotNullOrEmpty()]

        [ValidateScript({Test-Path $_})]

        [ValidateScript({$_.EndsWith(".msi")})]

        [String] $MsiPath,

        [Parameter(Mandatory=$false, Position=1)]

        [String] $TargetDirectory

       )

    if(-not($TargetDirectory))

    {

        $currentDir = [System.IO.Path]::GetDirectoryName($MsiPath)

        Write-Warning "A target directory is not specified. The contents of the MSI will be extracted to the location, $currentDir\Temp"

        $TargetDirectory = Join-Path $currentDir "Temp"

    }

    $MsiPath = Resolve-Path $MsiPath

    Write-Verbose "Extracting the contents of $MsiPath to $TargetDirectory"

    Start-Process "MSIEXEC" -ArgumentList "/a $MsiPath /qn TARGETDIR=$TargetDirectory" -Wait -NoNewWindow

}

PS C:\> Export-MsiContents -MsiPath C:\Binaries\Setup.msi -Verbose

WARNING: A target directory is not specified. The contents of the MSI will be extracted to the location, C:\Binaries\Temp

VERBOSE: Extracting the contents of C:\Binaries\Setup.msi to C:\Binaries\Temp