The WMI Windows Installer Provider component is one of the built-in providers that is included with Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI). It allows Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)-enabled applications to access information collected when Windows Installer–compliant applications are installed.

The Installer Provider mirrors the functionality of the Windows Installer, and can read any property of a software product installation. Also, the Installer Provider makes available to remote users the set of procedures that the Windows Installer makes available to users of stand-alone computers. Through WMI, you can perform a host of powerful tasks for application installation.

Component Configuration

Registering the Installation Provider

Registrations are the instance definitions required for the Windows Installer Provider to give information to the WMI Object Manager. Generally, registrations include instances of these system classes:

• __Win32Provider
• __InstanceProviderRegistration
• __MethodProviderRegistration

These instance definitions tell the WMI Object Manager how to use the provider. Note that they do not provide Installer information themselves.

Note   The Installer Provider employs the standard registration process for providers.

The Installer Provider is registered automatically as part of the installation process. There should be no need for you to register this provider for your applications. However, if an application requires the Installer Provider to be registered and it is not, compile the Msi.mof file using the MOF compiler.

Compiling the Msi.mof File

You can manually register the Installer provider by compiling Msi.mof. Do this by typing the following at the command prompt, where WBEMinstall dir represents the location of the core WMI installation:

C:\> WBEMinstalldir\mofcomp WBEMinstalldir\Msi.mof

Providers register with WMI to publish information about the data and operations that they support and their physical implementation. WMI uses this information to load and initialize the provider and to determine the right provider for a particular client request. All types of providers follow the same procedure for registration. Neither WMI nor the provider need to be running during the registration process. To register with WMI, a provider must execute the following steps.

1. Register with the Component Object Model (COM) by creating registry entries if necessary. This process applies to all COM servers and is unrelated to WMI.
2. Create a Managed Object Format (.mof) file that contains the following two instances:
   • An instance of the Win32Provider class to describe the physical implementation of the provider.
   • An instance of a class derived either directly or indirectly from ProviderRegistration to describe the logical implementation of the provider.
3. Place the .mof file into a permanent directory, typically the provider's installation directory.
4. Compile the .mof file using the MOF compiler or the IMofCompiler interface. The MOF compiler parses a file containing MOF statements and adds the classes and class instances defined in the file to the WMI repository.

There are no configuration requirements for this component.

Special Notes

The WMI Windows Installer Provider component is designed to work with the WMI Core component and other WMI provider components. WMI Windows Installer Provider also requires the WMI Tools component for compiling MOF files by using the Mofcomp.exe tool.

The following components have related functionality:

• WMI Core
• WMI View Provider
• WMI DS Provider
• WMI Win32 Provider
• WMI SNMP Provider

For More Information

For more information on WMI, see the Platform Software Development Kit (SDK) at this Microsoft Web site.