Windows – How to find out which installer package a given exe/dll belongs to

Usually msi packages are provided for system administrators who would have the need to deploy the software to several terminals over a network.

The results are no different from using an executable, but msi packages sometimes do have additional options such as doing silent or pre-configured installs.

If you are not a system administrator, use the executable.

I work at a Fortune 25 Company here in the US. I do application package - This answer is probably a little late though - We require all application to be self installing so we can push them to user work station silently via Altiris. While we prefer all software installers in MSI format this is not always the case, I will use EXE installers if they can run silently via command line or setup.iss file. If not then they will get repackaged to MSI format.

Your type of package would take less than 1 hour to put in MSI & Compile it via Wise Package Studio. Assuming its 1 file & 1 shortcut. It would actually take longer to test & get sign off than actually package it. All packages(Applications) are peer review & tested by the App Requester(app owner).

We have a few apps that are frequently update, like every few weeks or so. Since this would require allot of time to rebuild in MSI & Test every few weeks- we switch these to update themselves. We set these up to run a vb script as the shortcut, the 1st thing the vb script does is query a predefined network share & check the file date/version there against local copy. If network has newer version - than its copied. The the EXE file is ran - simple self updating.