Extract text from Windows installer packages (MSI)
To convert MSI installers to another format, you need Windows Installer or other Executable software.
To convert other file formats to the "Installation Package" file type, you need software like Windows Installer or a similar tool.
The .MSI file format is a Windows software installation package based on the Microsoft Compound File structured storage format. Under the hood, it is not a traditional executable program but rather a relational database containing dozens of interconnected tables that provide instructions for the Microsoft Windows Installer service. These files dictate exactly how applications are installed, modified, or removed on a Windows operating system.
Working with .MSI files presents several real-world challenges. They are strictly locked to the Windows ecosystem and cannot be run natively on macOS or Linux. Furthermore, executing an unknown .MSI file is a massive security risk because the installer often requires administrator privileges, allowing it to modify the system registry and core directories. Inspecting what is inside the file before running it is notoriously difficult for average users, as it requires specialized database tools like Orca or extraction utilities.
To overcome these limitations, you often need to extract or convert the package. For safe inspection, convert or extract the .MSI to a ZIP file to securely view the payload files without executing code. For broader deployment compatibility, developers wrap these packages into an EXE bootstrapper. For editing the installer logic, developers decompile it into WXS XML format.
Convert.Guru analyzes your MSI file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
Users also converted EXE, EPI, ZIP, MSIXBUNDLE, MSIX, PDF, MIS, MSL, MSI 3, APK, SETUP, 0_TABLES and CRDOWNLOAD files.
If you want to convert MSI file to EXE, MSIX, PDF, APK, MPA, TXT, DOC, DOCX, HTML, XLSX, PPT or PPTX, you can use Windows Installer or similar software from the "Software Installation Package" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert MP4, JPEG, MP3, HTM, GIF, DOC, DOCX, PNG, TXT, WAV, PDF or JPG files to MSI, try Windows Installer or another comparable tool in the "Software Installation Package" category.
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our MSI converter.