Sometimes the names chosen by Microsoft developers for applications make me think they are natives from my neighborhoods, in fact “orca miseria” is one of the favourite curses here where I live :D:D:D. In this case however the object named this way is very useful to avoid cursing.
ORCA has nothing to do with ORCAS, It is an editor made to look and edit what is inside a compiled msi file and it is part of the Windows Installer SDK.
I’ve discovered its existence by chance, searching a solution to an annoying problem, how to generate a shortcut in the SendTo folder of the user installing an application or the All Users SendTo folder. It is not possible using the Visual Studio .NET setup projects, because this kind of projects are able to generate only Advertised Shortcuts, these shortcuts got a different structure from the ones usually generated using the Right Key of the mouse both in XP and Vista (and I hope also in Windows Seven). It is a known problem since Visual Studio 2003 and part of a wish list since then, but it is not said the wish will ever come true.
Of course there is a workaround given by ORCA; After you generate an msi setup file, if you want it to generate NON Advertised shortcuts, we can achieve this opening the msi file with ORCA (I’ve found it here). Go to Property using the Left side List, right click the Right window and add a property as follows:
Name: DISABLEADVTSHORTCUTS Value: 1
This way, the shortcuts are generated with the normal format, of course, this operation has to be done every time you rebuild the msi, which is a little bit annoying but very simple.
Tags: msi, Installer, Orca, Setup