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I am going to add speech recognition support to my existing C# desktop application written in C# .Net 3.5. I searched on the google and found that in order to able to run speech recognition, client system must have installed Microsoft speech Platform 11.0. The speech platform is consists of 5 different .msi files. How can I include these five .msi files in my existing installer so that they install the required speech component along with my desktop application. Please suggest. Thanks in advance.

Awadesh
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  • You can add prerequisites to a desktop application. Check https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/7eh4aaa5%28v=vs.80%29.aspx – Julien May 12 '15 at 13:43
  • What are you using to build your installer? – mageos May 12 '15 at 13:49
  • Regarding the Julien's question, How can I add speech components in the Prerequisites dialog box? I can't see any speech prerequisite there in the box. – Awadesh May 12 '15 at 13:56
  • We have a class library project "InstallCustomAction" whose output we have added to the Msi Installer project. It is using C# .Net 3.5 – Awadesh May 12 '15 at 13:58
  • It doesn't appear because it is not there by default. You can add custom prerequisites too so it appears in the list and you can check it. See [this SO post](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1334436/adding-custom-prerequsites-to-visual-studio-setup-project) to add a custom prerequisite – Julien May 12 '15 at 14:02
  • I created the custom prerequisite by studying the above Stackoverlow link but where should I put my .msi file. I created product.xml and package.xml for the bootstrapper but where these msi files will be put for the installer to read and install on client machine? I do not have product code for these msi. – Awadesh May 14 '15 at 06:33
  • Hi Julien, I am able to add the .msi file with the installer. Each .msi file is saved in a folder inside the "Release" folder when I build the project in Release mode. But when I run my application's msi file it did not installed the speech component (which is in the folder in msi file). Do I need to do add some tag in package.xml? Please help. thank you – Awadesh May 15 '15 at 11:27

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You should say which tool you are using to build your base MSI setup. If it's Visual Studio then prerequisites are customized using the Bootstrap Manifest Generator. However it's mostly fallen into obscurity since installer projects were taken out of Visual Studio and then added back as an externsion.

You cannot install those speech MSI files from your installer class in a VS setup project. Recursive MSI installs don't work, and that's one reason why there are bootstrapper programmers that build a prerequisite installer. In all cases you'll need to know things like the ProductCode of those speech MSIs so that they can be detected if they are already installed.

In your position, and if you're using VS to build yoyur MSI file, I'd use WiX bootstrapper to mark those speech MSIs as prerequisite dependencies. If you search you'll find examples like this:

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/cb88b2/installing-prerequisites-using-wix-bootstrapper-project-and/

http://neilsleightholm.blogspot.com/2012/05/wix-burn-tipstricks.html

https://www.firegiant.com/wix/tutorial/net-and-net/bootstrapping/

PhilDW
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  • Thanks for your reply but my application is using Visual Studio 2010 (.Net framework 3.5) so this option is not available in VS2010. – Awadesh May 14 '15 at 09:51
  • That's not correct - the WiX bootstrapper doesn't care where your MSI files come from. Build a bootstrapper bundle and give it your MSI files. And it doesn't care what version of the NET FW you use. To be blunt, you really have liitle choice because the support for customizing the Visual Studio prerequisites builder is almost non-existent, and the six year old links have gone. – PhilDW May 14 '15 at 15:57
  • Thanks for your response. Do you mean that I need to build WIX bootstrapper bundle using VS2012 and include it in my project which is using VS2010 and then build the installer files? – Awadesh May 15 '15 at 05:53