Services: Most of the services information are stored in hklm\system\currentcontrolset\{name of the service} In msi, following tables contain info about services: Service Install (service details): it can create application based services. Service Control (controlling service during install and uninstall): it can modify the existing services. Two kind of services: Win32 service – which is run by executable file installed by application System or kernel service – used by OS to communicate to h/w devices.
This blog describes some of the packaging standards. Also contains methods to silently install different applications or handling their configuration for mass deployements.