How to specify MSI properties with Group Policy

Often you will find that vendors that have created Windows Installer files for their application only tell you how to change their settings from the command line. A typical example could be like this:

msiexec /i mypackage.msi ALLUSERS=1 LICENSE=a-key-here

This is very good as it makes it easy to automate installation. But what should I do if I want to automate using Group Policy???

I have mentioned Orca several times as a good tool to modify existing MSI installs.

What you have to do is to open the MSI file in Orca and create a new transform. Go then into the Property table. If you find the property you want to add, change the value there. If not, add a new row and enter your information. Your changes are recorded with green bars.

When done, save your transform. This transform can then be added to group policy.