What are the differences between MSI and EXE installers, and which should I choose?

Posted by Jared Harley on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Jared Harley
Published on 2010-03-16T07:22:18Z Indexed on 2010/03/16 7:26 UTC
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installer

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c#

I am working on an installer for a new version of my project (C#).

Previously, I've used Inno Setup to create .exe files for installing my projects on other computers in the workplace. While reading through some tutorials, though, I came across Windows Installer XML, which uses XML files to build a .msi installer.

My project will be available on a network share that all the employees have access to so they can install the software (I'm currently working on an update checker as well)

What are the major differences between .exe and .msi installers? Why would I want to chose one over the other? Would either make more sense given my specific environment?

I found some of the information at this question, but there was not a lot of information.

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