For our application, we don't use the MSI installer to deploy the runtime DLL's on our client machines, mostly because we want a completely silent install. I did try using the silent install options, but could never get it to work. If I could get that to work, then I would consider just using the MSI file to deploy the runtime files. So if anyone has suggestions for that, please share them.
Instead, we take the files and create our own cab file using MakeCab.exe. Unfortunately, we are now having issues with performing Excel 12 extracts because it relies on a .NET assembly, and for the life of me, I can't figure out how to add the assemblies to the GAC on the client machines from a command prompt. If anyone has suggestions how to do this, I would be most grateful.