The Installer uses GUIDs to uniquely identify applications, packages, components, etc. The ProductID is the GUID used by the Installer to distinguish one application from another. It doesn’t matter if the package or application names for two different applications are different, if the IDs are the same, the Installer is likely to become confused and you will encounter problems with installation, repair and uninstall.
How should an Installer GUID be represented?
The GUID data type is a text string representing a Class identifier (ID). COM must be able to convert the string to a valid Class ID. All GUIDs must be authored in uppercases. The valid format for a GUID is {XXXXXXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXXXXXXXXXX} where X is a hex digit (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F).
How does GUID get stored?
So a code such as {D0F23C3F-CA74-460F-9ADB-49CBD57F9688} becomes: F3C32F0D47ACF064A9BD94BC5DF76988
Refer below figure for example.
5 replies on “Where is the Windows Installer GUID stored in the machine?”
Actually it doesn’t use GUID’s to identify features. You should probably edit that to say “components”
Sure Sir. Correction made !
Great article !! Tks
Thanks Rodolfo..! I am glad that, you liked!
Cool… Well Explained! 🙂