Determine Which Version of Windows Installer is Installed

When deploying an application to a client, it may be necessary to upgrade the installed version of Windows Installer. For example, SQL Server 2008 requires that Windows Installer 4.5 be installed on the system, something that most Windows XP machines won’t have. It is simplest to just package the needed version of Windows Installer with your application, but if you need to check which version is installed manually, you can do one of the following.

Msi.dll Version

1. Navigate to the Windows\System32 directory of the computer (Generally C:\Windows\System32)
2. Find and check the version number of the file msi.dll

Running msiexec

1. Click Start
2. Click Run
3. Type msiexec
4. Press enter
5. In the window that appears, the version of Windows Installer will be on the first line