bdist_msi¶

This command is a standard command in Python 2.5 and higher which has been modified by cx_Freeze to handle installing executables and their dependencies. The following options were added to the standard set of options for the command:

option name	description
add_to_path¶	add the target directory to the PATH environment variable; the default value is True if there are any console-based executables and False otherwise.
all_users¶	install for all users; the default value is False and results in an installation for just the installing user.
data¶	dictionary of arbitrary MSI data indexed by table name; for each table, a list of tuples should be provided, representing the rows that should be added to the table. For binary values (e.g. Icon.Data), pass the path to the file containing the data.
summary_data¶	dictionary of data to include in MSI summary information stream (allowable keys are “author”, “comments”, and “keywords”).
directories¶	list of directories that should be created during installation.
environment_variables¶	list of environment variables that should be added to the system during installation.
initial_target_dir¶	defines the initial target directory supplied to the user during installation; to specify a target directory of “XYZ” in the default program directory use “[ProgramFiles64Folder]XYZ” or “[ProgramFilesFolder]XYZ” (for the default 64-bit or non-64-bit locations, respectively).
install_icon¶	path of icon to use for the add/remove programs window that pops up during installation.
product_code¶	define the product code for the package that is created.
target_name¶	specifies the name of the file that is to be created; if the name ends with “.msi” then it is used verbatim, otherwise, information about the program version and platform will be added to the installer name.
upgrade_code¶	define the GUID of the upgrade code for the package that is created; this is used to force the removal of any packages created with the same upgrade code before the installation of this one; the valid format for a GUID is {XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX} where X is a hex digit. Refer to Windows GUID.
extensions¶	list of dictionaries specifying the extensions that the installed program handles. Each extension needs to specify at least the extension, a verb, and an executable. Additional allowed keys are argument to specify the invocation of the executable, mime for the extension’s mime type, and context for the context menu text.

Added in version 6.7: extensions option.

This is the equivalent help to specify the same options on the command line:

python setup.py bdist_msi --help

For example:

directory_table = [
    ("ProgramMenuFolder", "TARGETDIR", "."),
    ("MyProgramMenu", "ProgramMenuFolder", "MYPROG~1|My Program"),
]

msi_data = {
    "Directory": directory_table,
    "ProgId": [
        ("Prog.Id", None, None, "This is a description", "IconId", None),
    ],
    "Icon": [
        ("IconId", "icon.ico"),
    ],
}

bdist_msi_options = {
    "add_to_path": True,
    "data": msi_data,
    "environment_variables": [
        ("E_MYAPP_VAR", "=-*MYAPP_VAR", "1", "TARGETDIR")
    ],
    "upgrade_code": "{XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX}",
}

build_exe_options = {"excludes": ["tkinter"], "include_msvcr": True}

executables = [
    Executable(
        "hello.py",
        copyright="Copyright (C) 2024 cx_Freeze",
        base="gui",
        icon="icon.ico",
        shortcut_name="My Program Name",
        shortcut_dir="MyProgramMenu",
    )
]

setup(
    name="hello",
    version="0.1",
    description="Sample cx_Freeze script to test MSI arbitrary data stream",
    executables=executables,
    options={
        "build_exe": build_exe_options,
        "bdist_msi": bdist_msi_options,
    },
)

Samples: There are more examples in the samples directory.