Chromium msi

[Milan Karmakar]

Hi all,

Do you know how to generate msi of chromium on Windows? I don't want mini_installer.exe.

Please forward to the right group who can help me.

Regards,

Milan

[Greg Thompson]

I think some of the scripts are now in the updater's codebase. I suggest asking in the forums mentioned in https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/chrome/updater/README.md.

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[Sorin Jianu]

On Thursday, July 17, 2025 at 5:38:28 AM UTC-7 Greg Thompson wrote:

I think some of the scripts are now in the updater's codebase. I suggest asking in the forums mentioned in https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/chrome/updater/README.md.

Milan, will something like `chrome/updater/win/signing/msi_from_standalone.py` work for you?

Thank you!

On Mon, Jul 7, 2025 at 5:14 PM Milan Karmakar <mbkar...@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi all,

Do you know how to generate msi of chromium on Windows? I don't want mini_installer.exe.

Please forward to the right group who can help me.

Regards,

Milan

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[Milan Karmakar]

Thats great. I will try that.

[Milan Karmakar]

Hi Sorin,

One Problem is that 2 softwares get installed on my system now. One for msi and other for mini_installer. Msi here is just a wrapper over the exe.

Regards,

Milan

[Greg Thompson]

Hi. Do you mean that you see two entries in the Windows Add/Remove Programs control panel? If so, the issue is that you must pass something like --product-installer-data=" %7B%22distribution%22%3A%7B%22msi%22%3Atrue%2C%22msi_product_id%22%3A%22%3D%3DMSI-PRODUCT-ID%3D%3D%22%7D%7D" to the msi_from_standalone script. That will result in an installerdata tag with an initial_preferences dict like this:

{"distribution":{"msi":true,"msi_product_id":"{YOURPRODUCTGUID}"}}

The "msi" and "msi_product_id" values are required by Chrome's installer.

[Milan Karmakar]

Hi Greg and Sorin,

I am facing two issues now. I will explain what I am doing and the issues. Please let me know if I am correct.

Commands:-

1. I ran the following command to create msi from chromium

python chrome/updater/win/signing/msi_from_standalone.py

--wix_path "C:/Program Files/WiX Toolset v6.0/bin/wix.exe"

--product_name "JioSphere"

--product_version 5.0.0.6

--appid "com.jio.jiosphere"

--product_custom_params ""

--product_uninstaller_additional_args="--force-uninstall"

--product_installer_data "{"distribution":{"msi":true,"msi_product_id":"{95F8862E-6E96-4D83-A836-BA38693D24AC}","log_file":"C:\\Temp\\mini_installer.log"}}"

--architecture x64

--standalone_installer_path out/release/mini_installer.exe

--custom_action_dll_path out/release/msi_custom_action.dll

--msi_base_name JioSphereEnterprise

--enterprise_installer_dir chrome/updater/win/signing

--company_name "Jio"

--company_full_name "Jio"

--output_dir out/release

 

2. Ran following commands in powershell admin mode:-

PS C:\Windows\system32> .\msiexec.exe /i 'C:\Users\sriharsha.masineni\Downloads\JioSphereEnterprise.msi'

PS C:\Windows\system32> .\msiexec.exe /x 'C:\Users\sriharsha.masineni\Downloads\JioSphereEnterprise.msi'

 

Issues:-

There are 2 problems:-

1. I can see C:\Users\sriharsha.masineni\AppData\Local\JIO\JioSphere\Application\JioSphere.exe but software didn't get installed on my system. I can see only 1 entry for JioSphere.msi in Add or Remove Programs (Control Panel) but no entry for mini_installer.

2. I am not able to uninstall msi. Getting below error.

There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A program required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor.

[Greg Thompson]

Hi. You need to URL-encode the value for the product_installer_data argument. For example:

%7B%22distribution%22%3A%7B%22msi%22%3Atrue%2C%22msi%5Fproduct%5Fid%22%3A%22%3D%3DMSI%2DPRODUCT%2DID%3D%3D%22%2C%22log%5Ffile%22%3A%22C%3A%5C%5CTemp%5C%5Cmini%5Finstaller%2Elog%22%7D%7D

(Note that msi_from_standalone.py will replace "==MSI-PRODUCT-ID==" with the actual GUID for you.)

I suggest that you use orca.exe to look at the properties in the Google Chrome .msi and compare them to yours.

[Milan Karmakar]

Thanks Greg for your quick response. I corrected that.

But does the msi wrap only UpdaterSetup.exe? Because I can see in Orca.exe that for action SetProductTagProperty, target is appguid={guid}&appname=name&needsAdmin=true.

I was actually trying to wrap my mini_installer.exe. problems still persist there.

[Greg Thompson]

Ah. It's meant to wrap the standalone Chrome installer, which has mini_installer.exe combined with the updater. Sorin: are there scripts to build a standalone installer?

[Sorin Jianu]

We have documented the steps to  create a standalone installer here: https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/updater/functional_spec.md#steps-to-create-an-offline-metainstaller-for-windows

Thank you!

[Milan Karmakar]

Thanks Sorin and Greg. I am able to create online, offline installer and also msi. 

There is another requirement. Is it possible to create silent installer? I want to upload our browser on Microsoft Store. It accepts only silent installer I believe. And mini_installer.exe alone doesn't support Omaha update.

[Greg Thompson]

Does `msiexec /i <PATH TO MSI> /quiet` not do a "silent" installation?