I have an older Windows 32 program that needs to be repackaged for Windows 8. All I have is the installer, which does not run in compatibility mode, although the program itself does run in compatibility mode once installed (this was tested by users, not me), so the app itself does not need to be remade, just the installer.
I currently don't have access to a 32-bit Windows machine. Is there a way to unpack and repackage this installer from Windows 8? I am not sure which installer this is, even after studying it in a hex editor. If it helps, this is what the icon looks like.
Before you try to repackage it you should consult its docs to see if there are easier methods. For example some EXE installers can simply be extracted using 7-zip, others have a command line switch.
If not, you should try to run it on a 64-bit machine and see if you can get a log of the failed installation. Maybe that will give you hints on what is the problem and from there on you can think on a better solution. In some cases shims are helpful.
EDIT: From what I know a 32 bit application should always be able to run on a 64 bit Win OS, so I suspect the installer you have is just stopping you because it considers the app cannot run. You can trick it to tell it the OS is a 32 bit one using a shim, as I said above. Here are two articles about how to create shims:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/7/archive/2010/01/22/creating-an-application-compatibility-shim.aspx
http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2011/06/17/demystifying-shims-or-using-the-app-compat-toolkit-to-make-your-old-stuff-work-with-your-new-stuff.aspx