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I have an MSI file that was created from an ASP.NET MVC setup project. I want to be able to see if a specific C# change made it into that MSI file.

I used 7-zip to extract the contents, but the only .DLL or .EXE I see in the contents appears to be an icon resource ("Icon._853F67D554F05449430E7E.exe"). When I try to decompile it in ILSpy I get this diagnostic: "This file does not contain a managed assembly."

The rest of the files do not seem to have extensions. I'm wondering if MSI's further compress things down or perhaps the code is now compiled past the IL to machine binary (Roslyn, etc).

Does anyone know how I can inspect the C# code?

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micahhoover
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    MSI files are not coded in C#. So you cannot use programs designed to decompile managed code, like C#, to view the source. Of course it is not clear which executable you are trying to inspect. – Ramhound Nov 04 '16 at 13:52
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    " I'm wondering if MSI's further compress things down" - Yes; Except it also depends on what is building the .MSI, but using 7-zip, is the correct way to extract files out of a .MSI file. [How to extract files from MSI package?](http://superuser.com/questions/307678/how-to-extract-files-from-msi-package) try actually extracting the files the correct way and update your question. – Ramhound Nov 04 '16 at 14:05
  • @Ramhound: I had expected maybe I could get at a DLL or something inside the MSI. Sounds like not. I tried the msiexec way to do it but got "The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with the package. The error code is 2203." – micahhoover Nov 04 '16 at 14:28
  • What is the actual reason it failed? Can you check the log that is generated? – Ramhound Nov 04 '16 at 18:52
  • @Ramhound: from the Event Viewer: "Product: [AppName] -- The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2203. The arguments are: C:\Users\micah_000\Desktop\msi_2\3.162.11.msi, -2147287008, " – micahhoover Nov 04 '16 at 19:06

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