So it seems that once every few months a company-wide software deployment falls on my lap and I go through the same hunt for an MSI package so I can use Group Policy as a deployment tool.  Apparently  I’m too loopy to write down the method I used the time before and google usually sends me through an infinite map of “FREE EXE TO MSI CONVERTERS” which is totally not what I am looking for. 

But today was different, today I tried something else.  There are some freeware applications that I really appreciate, and my favorite compression utility is 7-Zip.  Yes it’s windows only yes windows does compression, but 7-zip handles so much more includeing, apparently, exe extraction.  I am deploying silverlight 2 beta 2 and was having a bear of a time geting an MSI package, until I simply right-clicked on the exe and from the 7-zip menu selected “Extract Here”. My friends I tell you, it worked like a charm, and this is one application deployment tech who is a little happier now than he was before lunch. Even though I got mostly free pizza for lunch which was nice too.