MSI redistributables

[goran.kimovski]

Hi,

I am trying to evaluate IA as a replacement for IS and since I am interested in producing redistributable MSI out of my code so that other developers can include it in their setups, I was wondering if I can do that with IA. I've read the thread from alexzakharov regarding the silent option where I found references to an "outer" MSI, so I would like to get better understanding how this outer MSI option works and if I can use it to generate redistributable MSI while still making use of your compression. In addition, I am interested to know if and how I can parametrise the outer MSI, or if that is not possible, how can I parametrise the EXE output by IA so other setup developers can e.g. include my EXE in their setups as some sort of a custom action or similar and pass the parameters on a command line.

Thanks,

Kima

[CandiceJones]

Hi Kima,

There is no need for you to use the Group Policy Wizard...simply run the InstallAware setup from the command line, using the "/s" parameter if you would like to do a silent installation. There is a full range of command line switches that you can use, and you may also pass in variable values for variables used in the script - this is documented in the help file section "Setup Command Line Parameters".

[goran.kimovski]

Thanks Candice,

the reference to the help section was of great help ... this is my first day looking at your product so i apologise for not finding that my self

However, I am still interested if other developers can still utilise my MSI created through the Group Policy Wizard within their .NET deployment or InstallShield projects as well as VS2005 ClickOnce as a redistributable ... ideally, they should be able to specify the same variables they can do on the command line of the EXE file, but I'm not sure if the MSI created by the Group Policy Wizard bubles up those variables ... to the very least, what I need is to be able to let developer specify the install dir where they want the redist files to go

Thanks,

Kima

[CandiceJones]

If you set the CMDLINE public MSI property in the Group Policy MSI, that will be passed as the command line, so you can do what you want. Just set the TARGETDIR variable.