Active Administrator - How to modify the GPMC msi to allow it to install on a 64-bit OS (SL3253)

One of the prerequisites for installing Active Administrator 5.5 is GPMC. However, when you attempt to install GPMC on a 64-bit machine, you get a message that .NET Framework needs to be installed before proceeding. The reason for this is that the installer is looking for a 32-bit version of the .NET Framework which is not present on the 64-bit OS.

Installing this version of .NET is obviously a workable option as well, although Microsoft states that GPMC will not run on 64-bit versions of Windows, (figure1).

Figure 1 

To avoid installing the 32-bit version of .NET, you will need to prevent the GPMC.msi from checking on which version of .NET is installed. This involves modifying the GPMC MSI, using an MSI editor like MSI Studio. In this example MSI Studio was used to make the modifications. This works because GPMC will work with the 64-bit version of .NET.

Open MSI Studio and select File > Open, (figure2).

Figure 2 

Browse for the GPMC.msi, select Open”, figure 3).

Figure 3 

The MSI installer will process an installation package in stages or Event Sequences and in each Event Sequence different actions are performed. The goal here is to modify the action in two of the Event Sequences that looks for a specific version of .NET

Go to the “Dialog & Action” section of MSI Studio and expand the “Event Sequence” node, (figure 4).

Figure 4 

Select the “InstallUISequence” node, scroll to the “BlockOnNoNetFramework” event in the right pane and click “Remove”, (figure5).

Figure 5 

The second sequence we will modify is the “InstallExecuteSequence”. In the “Dialog & Action” section of MSI Studio expand the “Event Sequence” node. Select the “InstallExecuteSequence” node, scroll to the “BlockOnNoNetFramework” event in the right pane and click “Remove”, (figure6).

Figure 6 

Once both Event Sequences are modified, select “File”>”Save As” from the main menu, (figure7).

Figure 7 

You may name the file anything you like, but in this example it is called “GPMCMod.msi”, (figure8).

Figure 8 

Now when you run the GPMC.msi on the 64-bit OS, the installation should run and GPMC will install sucessfully.