Requirement:
When vendor provided source includes .MSI file associated with many compressed small external .cab files, you need (for deployment software’s like LANDesk that counts on number of files in it’s package) to embed all the external .cab files back into the .MSI itself so that we’ll just have single .MSI installer for the application. Below is the process I used and that worked for me:
Process to embed the external .cab files back into .MSI file:
1. Install the vendor given .MSI in admin mode.
a. msiexec /a <MSI Package.msi>
b. walk through the msiexec screens and provide a location to save the install files.
2. Download the WiMakCab.vbs script from Windows Installer SDK and save the script folder where you have .MSI admin files saved
3. Run the WiMakCab.vbs script as below to have the complete installation files bundled into single .CAB file and saved into .MSI installer itself
a. wimakcab.vbs "MSI Package.msi" data /C /U /E
4. After few minutes, you’ll have the .MSI with an internally compressed cab file named data.cab and you can also notice the proportional increase in .MSI size
5. Now you can just use the .MSI file to install the whole application without requiring any external .cab files.
