Creating a Solidworks Application from MSI

So we’ve created our Solidworks admin image and copied over the installation files to our configmgr software repository. The next step is to create an application in CM to be able to deploy out to users. However, when I tried to import the MSI CM threw an error:

Import failed.
Invalid ALLUSERS property value: 0
Click Previous to attempt to correct the problem, or click Cancel.

If you didn't get this error and SW was able to be imported via MSI into CM for you then congrats, proceed inwards.

For those of us not so lucky this is error is disappointing as I want the benefits of creating applications via MSI (detection, uninstall path, etc).

The Fix

Thankfully the fix is fairly simple. Download and install ORCA, a tool from Microsoft which allows you to edit MSI files.

1. Copy the solidworks.msi locally
2. Open in Orca
3. Under Tables find the Property Table
4. Sort property A > Z
5. Find the ALLUSERS property
6. Set the value to 2 (as recommended by Microsoft)

7.  Rename the original solidworks.msi to something like solidworks.msi.backup (always nice to keep the original in case your changes break it)
8. Copy over the fixed solidworks.msi
9. Re-run the Create Application wizard

VOILA!

Now just proceed through the app creation process as you normally do and you can happily deploy solidworks via MSI.