# activescott/lessmsi

A tool to view and extract the contents of an Windows Installer (.msi) file.

Repository: https://github.com/activescott/lessmsi
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/lessmsi
Homepage: https://lessmsi.activescott.com
Language: C#
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: msi, chocolatey, install, c-sharp, install-script, windows, extract-files, extract
Last push: 2026-04-02T20:02:48+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 81/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 75, release rhythm 77, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4772, "days_push": 153, "days_rel": 153, "gap_med": 4, "n_releases_24m": 46}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1753, forks 189 (observed 2026-08-28T04:05:31.844461+00:00)

## What it is
lessmsi is a Windows utility with both a GUI and a command line interface for viewing and extracting the contents of Windows Installer (.msi) files. It also integrates with Windows Explorer for right-click extraction and includes an MSI internal database table viewer.

## Use cases
- extract files from an msi installer
- view contents of a windows installer file
- extract msi files from the command line in scripts
- inspect msi database tables
- right-click extract an msi in windows explorer
- pull driver or payload files out of an msi package

## When to choose
- you need to unpack an .msi without running the installer
- you want to automate msi extraction in scripts or CI
- you need to inspect the internal tables of an msi file
- you want explorer right-click extraction on windows

## When to avoid
- you need to create or author msi packages rather than extract them
- you need a cross-platform msi tool for linux or macos
- you need to modify or patch msi files

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: stable
- function: cli, gui, file-system, developer-tools
- domain: developer-tools, windows, files
- platform: windows, cli
- tags: msi, windows-installer, extract-files, explorer-integration, chocolatey, installer-inspection, command-line, desktop

## Member repositories
- activescott/lessmsi (main) score 81

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:31.844461+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T03:28:10.166880+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/activescott/lessmsi (fetched 2026-08-28T04:05:31.844461+00:00, sha 396f7d2c8413)
  - homepage: https://lessmsi.activescott.com (fetched 2026-08-29T11:06:14.077467+00:00, sha e9743e89bcc8)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.