How to extract files from a .MSI file

Today I found some files on an installed system of mine had become damaged. I reinstalled the software, but this did not fix the problem.

So I thought the next thing is to get good copies of the files I wanted from the .MSI file I already had.

Of course how to do this? I found a terrific – and free – utility called LessMSI described as “a utility with a graphical user interface and a command line interface that can be used to view and extract the contents of an MSI file”. Just what I needed.

You can get more information and download this from Google code pages at code.google.com/p/lessmsi/.

The GUI is very simple and intuitive, so I had no problem locating the files I needed in the MSI and extracting only them. Problem solved!