Adding MS Access and Excel files inside NSIS Installer package - excel

I am creating an NSIS Installer package sample for a project I am working on. I need certain MS Access and Excel files to be automatically placed in the documents folder directory; "C:\User\MyName\Documents\PexApp\Storage", instead on my application having to connect to a network sharefolder to get the files. I want offline installation to be possible.
There are three excel files that are supposed to go to the PexApp folder and two Access database files that are supposed to go to the Storage folder inside the PexApp folder.
How do I add the files inside the installer package (if it is possible) so that they may be available for offline placement through the installer and what scripts or methods should I use or consider?

OutFile "MySetup.exe"
Name "MySetup"
RequestExecutionLevel user
Section
SetOutPath "$DOCUMENTS\PexApp"
File "Excel1.xls"
File "Excel2.xls"
File "Excel3.xls"
SetOutPath "$DOCUMENTS\PexApp\Storage"
File "Access1.db"
File "Access2.db"
SectionEnd

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DocuSign Edit MSI

Hi DocuSign CLM geeks and the DocuSign API in-house team-
Our team will be using DocuSign CLM with the DocuSign Edit add-on to easily open Microsoft Word files and save back to CLM.
We'd like to include the installation of DocuSign Edit in our Silent Mode installation configuration. We're hoping there's an msi File available for the DocuSign Edit extension? If so, please link!
Plan B- If we were to make our own msi from the available exe, does anyone have a trail stomped out for doing this? (a blog post, documentation, step by step, video demo, even a horror story)
Thanks for tips.
https://tools.springcm.com/sites/default/files/apps/docusign-edit-pc-2.01.00.exe
This is an exe that is built from an MSI, so it is an MSI.
If you want to get the MSI out of this https://www.codetwo.com/kb/msi-from-exe/:
The first method is based on the fact that most installers extract their .msi files to the temporary files folder during the installation process. To extract an MSI file from an EXE installer, you need to:
Launch your .exe file.
When you see the first prompt (e.g. a question about whether you want to continue installation, accept a license agreement, etc.), do not click anything in this window and do not close it.
Open Windows Explorer, type %temp% in the address bar and press Enter.
Sort the files in the folder by the modification date. The newest file on the list should be the .msi file you are looking for.
Copy the MSI file to a safe location before you close the installer prompt window (see step 2). Be aware that if you close the installer window, the MSI file will be immediately deleted from the temporary files folder.
The second method uses a free third-party tool called 7-Zip to browse the content of the .exe installer file. Follow the steps below.
Download 7-Zip from this page and install it.
Right-click on the .exe file (from which you want to extract an .msi file) and from the shortcut menu choose 7-Zip > Open Archive.
Do not extract any files yet. Instead, browse and look for the folder MSI within the contents. It might take some time to find this folder because it is not always located directly in the root directory (its location may vary depending on the installer).
When you locate the MSI folder, you will notice that it most likely does not contain any .msi files, but a file or files with no extensions and rather cryptic names such as 132. Despite these misleading names, these are actually the MSI files you are looking for.
Drag and drop these files to any desired folder or select them and extract them with 7-Zip. Close 7-Zip after that.
Change the names of the extracted files so that they include the .msi extension.
If there are two files, the larger one is the 64-bit installer, and the smaller one is the 32-bit version. Use the one you need.
Finally, if you want to tweak an MSI, you can use the Orca tool by Microsoft - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/msi/orca-exe

Installshield 2013 Installscript MSI: Wrong .msi location during Repair

I've got a pretty simple installscript MSI project - it copies some files into a folder, updates a few registry keys and that's pretty much it.
When I try to use the Repair function (either by re-launching the installer, or by choosing the app's Modify option under Apps & Features), I get the following message, when it gets to the "Copying new files" stage:
"The feature you are trying to use is on a network resource that is unavailable.
Click OK to try again, or enter an alternate path to a folder containing the installation package 'project.msi' in the box below."
The path in which it looks for the .msi file is %TEMP%\[SOME_RANDOM_HEXADECIMAL_STRING]
This random hexadecimal string doesn't seem to be specifically related to the project. It's neither the Product Code nor the Upgrade Code nor the Package Code.
When I look for it in the registry, I find it in the values of the following keys:
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\[SCRAMBLED_PRODUCT_CODE]\SourceList\LastUsedSource
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Installer\Products\[SCRAMBLED_PRODUCT_CODE]\SourceList\Net\3
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products\[ANOTHER_SCRAMBLED_PRODUCT_CODE]\SourceList\LastUsedSource
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Installer\Products\[ANOTHER_SCRAMBLED_PRODUCT_CODE]\SourceList\Net\3
Looking at the %TEMP% folder, I can find the .msi file in a folder that has another random hexadecimal string as its name. That folder does not appear in the registry at all.
I don't want my clients to go looking for .msi files every time they want to repair an installation of my product. How can I let the installer know the .msi file's location?
The source files you installed from are probably just missing since your temp folder has been cleaned out (where the install originally ran from).
There used to be a cache the whole MSI - feature you could enable on a release-configuration basis (Cache MSI Locally). This would "solve" this problem I believe by caching the whole MSI in a safe location (see section 3). Many do this, despite the increased disk space used.
Another option is to install from an administrative installation (essentially an extract of your setup's files - run via setup.exe /a or msiexec.exe /a MySetup.msi - which has been put available on a network share, always available for repair or modify operations). This is what corporate deployment uses to support repair and modify operations.

How to copy files into AppData\Local\Temp in inno script

I have created an .exe file for my application using inno script. Here I want to copy files from my setup folder to the AppData\Local\Temp directory. This is done using the below code.
Source: "WebcamApplet_1-0-0\*"; DestDir: "{localappdata}\Temp\WebcamApplet_1-0-0"
The problem I'm facing is that this code is only copying the files into the sysadmin ie C:\Users\Sysadmin\AppData\Local\Temp (Admin), I have to put it in C:\Users\Manesh\AppData\Local\Temp(User) for my application to work. How do I solve this problem.
Your application is badly designed if it expects files to be installed to the Temp folder. This folder is so named because the user or the system are free to delete all files contained therein at any time -- it is therefore suitable only for temporary use.
Additionally, there is no reasonable and reliable way for a per-machine installer (one running with PrivilegesRequired=admin, which is the default) to install files or settings to per-user folders, including the per-user temporary folder.
If you really really want to do this, you should set PrivilegesRequired=lowest to create a per-user installer -- but bear in mind that this will introduce other restrictions, such as limiting where your application can be installed to. Provided that you are running with lowest privileges, you can then use {%TEMP} to refer to the temporary path.

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I'm looking for a way to store all my applications files within a single folder. However, when someone clicks on the folder I want the application inside the folder to open up as opposed to open the folder itself. I want to keep all dependancies and files inside this folder at all times.
I'm doing this because I'm going to be deploying a couple applications on a common framework and want to ensure that they are together and independent of the distribution have all requirements.
Folders are directories, and directories are distinct from files. There's no way to redirect a directory to an executable file. However, you can make a hidden directory (begin name with ".") and use an executable file to provide access to that directory. The directory will then not appear in window manager folders, just the application. However, window managers will not misrepresent the executable file as a directory.

How to use makecab.exe to create cabinet (*.CAB) file using ALL FILES in a folder?

How to use makecab.exe to create cabinet (*.CAB) file using ALL FILES in a folder?
I have a large number of files and its very hard to add them in the .DDF file which is used by makecab utility. So I want to know how to specify in a DDF file that all files in a given folder should be added in my CAB.
I have extracted one CAB file from MSI created using InstallShield. I have replaced one of the files and now I want to create a new CAB archive.
This is not supported by makecab.exe. You need to specify which files you want to include.
Either way, if you are trying to modify a MSI CAB, it won't work. The CAB is just a files container. The actual file information used during install is stored in the MSI database.
A better solution would be to import the MSI in a setup authoring tool, make the modifications you need and generate a new MSI.

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