I am trying to extract the file-contents of an InstallShield setup.exe-file. (My plan is to use it in a back-office tool, so this must be done programmatically without any user interactions.)

1. Microsoft Installshield Download
2. Free Installshield Download

Decompiler Installshield Wizard Repair. Windows Installshield Decompiler - Free Download Windows Installshield Decompiler on File. A general, open source. Download the Microsoft ORCA MSI utility if you want to edit the contents of Microsoft Software Installation files.

Is this possible?
(Initial research seems to indicate it will fail.)

If it is possible to have a generic solution, for all recent versions of InstallShield that would be best.
Otherwise, if a solution only works for some versions of InstallShield it would be a step on the way. (It would probably be possible to deduce which InstallShield version a setup.exe is by looking at version resources of the exe-file.

I found that some InstallShield versions support /b or /extract_all. However there is no good way of knowing, just launching the exe and hoping it will extract and terminate orderly rather then displaying GUI dialogs doesn't seem like a good solution. So I am therefore looking for a more stable way.
Ideas welcome.

5 Answers

There's no supported way to do this, but won't you have to examine the files related to each installer to figure out how to actually install them after extracting them? Assuming you can spend the time to figure out which command-line applies, here are some candidate parameters that normally allow you to extract an installation.

MSI Based (may not result in a usable image for an InstallScript MSI installation): Download lagu soundtrack love in paris season 2.

• setup.exe /a /s /v'/qn TARGETDIR='choose-a-location'

  or, to also extract prerequisites (for versions where it works),

• setup.exe /a'choose-another-location' /s /v'/qn TARGETDIR='choose-a-location'

InstallScript based:

• setup.exe /s /extract_all

Suite based (may not be obvious how to install the resulting files):

• setup.exe /silent /stage_only ISRootStagePath='choose-a-location'

Usage: isxunpack.exe yourinstallshield.exe

It will extract in the same folder.

Start with:

And you should see a dialog popup with some options displayed.

On Linux there is unshield, which worked well for me (even if the GUI includes custom deterrents like license key prompts). It is included in the repositories of all major distributions (arch, suse, debian- and fedora-based) and its source is available at https://github.com/twogood/unshield

The free and open-source program called cabextract will list and extract the contents of not just .cab-files, but Macrovision's archives too:

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged installerinstallshield or ask your own question.

Hi All,
Does anyone know of any way to decrypt/decompile an installer?
I built an installer with Installshield. By accident, I deleted all the source for the installer. Not sure if there's any tool that could reverse back the whole directory?
I can unzip the Data1.cab file, but I could only get to some of the files, and some are still encrypted. Plus I lost all the custom actions.
I still need to reuse the installer files and structure for future installer.

Microsoft Installshield Download

So I don't have to build everything again. I don't need source code, because I have that backed up, but I want all the dll, exe, custom actions, windows components (with the right version), also the structure of the ism file.

Free Installshield Download

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!!