How Does App Volumes Direct Mode Work via MSI
In connection with another blog post I’m writing in a series about App Volumes Direct Mode, I wanted to find out exactly how the MSI we create during capture works and what it contains. In this post I have chosen to use a couple of App Volumes MSI-wrapped packages I made myself using their capture tool. After capture, you get a wrapped MSI that contains the App Volumes package (VHD + JSON), either embedded directly or stored inside an internal CAB stream. This also explains why you encounter a CAB file when the package exceeds 2GB. To get the most out of what I'm writing, you should have some familiarity with how MSI files work. In short, an MSI is a database with tables and logic that specifies where and how things should end up on the system. Custom Actions are the logic that performs custom operations within an MSI. This may not be rocket science, but I believe you need the right tools and a decent understanding of MSI to follow the flow. This was previously a gap in my ...