Setup Decompressor

To start the Setup Decompressor, on the Design tab, in the Tools group, click Decompress. Use the setup decompressor tool to increase the compressability of MSI, MSP, and EXE files included in your InstallAware setups:

1. Click Browse and locate the original MSI, MSP, or EXE file you wish to make more compressible.
2. Check Backup Original File to save a backup of the original file. Making a backup is strongly recommended as the process makes irreversible changes to the original file.
3. Click Decompress and wait for processing to complete.
4. Test the new resulting setup to make sure it works as intended.
5. Add the new file to your setup project. InstallAware can now utilize its superior compression levels to reduce your package size even further.

Because pre-compressed data cannot be recompressed, even using superior compression algorithms, the above procedure is necessary to assure that your setups which contain pre-compressed data streams are recompressible.

Creating Independent Packages

If you wish to utilize InstallAware's superior compression levels in an existing setup, without adding it to an InstallAware project (or creating a new InstallAware project for it), check the Recompress with InstallAware Wrapper check-box. In addition to decompressing the original setup, this will recompress it with advanced compression technology, and add a self extracting wrapper to the strongly compressed file. The resulting file can be run independently and launch the original installation.

Supported Package Types

Most Microsoft packages are supported by the Setup Decompressor tool. Virtually all Windows Installer packages are supported. Packages created by third party installation technologies not targeting Windows Installer may not be supported.

If a supported package is contained inside an outer "shell", the outer shell may not be recognized by the tool. In most instances, the outer shell extracts the embedded Windows Installer packages, which are recognized, into temporary locations. Two such typical locations are:

<system temporary folder>

<windows folder>\Downloaded Installations

You may try launching the outer "shell", wait until it completes extraction of the embedded files, then review the above locations to find the extracted packages, which will most likely be recognized and processed by this tool.