Apply existing MST file to new MSI package

Question

I have an "app.msi" file built with Visual Studio 2010 deployment project and "empty.mst" transform created based on "empty.msi" template. When I try to apply "empty.mst" to "app.msi" using Orca, I get following error: "The specified transform could not be applied".

I need to modify "app.msi" so that "empty.mst" transform file can be applied to it, but I can't figure out what exactly is responsible for msi - mst correlation in this case.

Answer 1

Transforms (.mst files) have validation bits in them that can limit the products (.msi files) the transform may apply to. Currently transforms can validate the UpgradeCode, ProductCode, ProductVersion and ProductLanguage of the target product. I have not checked, but it is likely that empty.mst validates one or more of those values of the empty.msi and thus is not generally applicable.

You might just create a transform of your own .msi.

Answer 2

It occured that problem was related to language/localization settings - .msi file had different Code Page value than .mst transform. After changing both to 1252 (English), transform was applied without problems.