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Triying to use the built in Visual Studio 2010 to install a couple of files and after that is done to run another installer package (3rd Party Installation Wizard).

Rick
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  • Two installer packages? My pet peeve. . . – surfasb Jul 19 '11 at 20:31
  • If I knew exactly what the other installer did then I might of done it all in one package. – Rick Jul 20 '11 at 00:19
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    Why not add the second installer as a prerequisite? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1334436/adding-custom-prerequsites-to-visual-studio-setup-project – Cosmin Jul 20 '11 at 06:28
  • Tried it and managed to add the prerequisite to the list, but have a couple of issues with it. First, the 3rd Party Installation is InstallSheild 5.10.130.0, not exactly sure how to add that to the product.xml file. I added just the setup.exe in the xml and when the program complied it only included the setup.exe file. I hand copied the rest of the files and when the installer runs it gives the error: "unable to find installation languages" – Rick Jul 20 '11 at 14:34

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I tried that the "normal" way and didn't succeed. Installers can't be mixed, run simultaneously.

What I did, though, was to make another application that run two installers, one after another. My application first, then SQL Server Express. It worked. Eventual problem is, if second installer fail, it wont rollback the first installation. It was something I could live with.

My setup application then looks like this (pseudocode):

proces1 = Run MyApp.msi
Wait for proces1 to complete
proces2 = Run 3thPartyApp.msi
Wait for proces2 to complete

You can get return codes from processes you run from .net, so you know if anything failed.

Finally, you can use selfextracting archive to package everything into one, easy to distribute exe file.

Miroslav Zadravec
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