Combining Installers

[keefie]

I am trying to create a new installer (which we shall call 'InstallerNew') which silently installs another InstallAware generated installer (which I already create myself and we shall call 'InstallerExisting').

The approach I have tried is to create a new InstallAware project for InstallerNew which uses the "(Un)Install MSI Package" plugin as described in the great document attached to this thread,
http://forums.installaware.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6224

When I have InstallAware create uncompressed installers when building InstallerExisting it creates a small .msi file and various other files. When I add this .msi file under 'Support Files' and then try and use this .msi file within InstallerNew using the "(Un)Install MSI Package" plugin it fails to run reporting,
'Fatal error during installation'

I notice the "(Un)Install MSI Package" plugin has a checkbox labelled 'Package is InstallAware generated installation' which I have checked so I am still hopeful I can do what I want to do but I'm not clear how I do it.

[FrancescoT]

Dear Keefie,

The "(Un)Install MSI Package" plugin requires a Full Setup MSI file.
Instead of using an uncopressed build you must produce a compressed single exe file build, then once completed, you have to convert that produced single EXE to MSI using the Group Policy Wizard Tool. The tool is available with InstallAware Design view IDE or under InstallAware Tools folder in InstallAware Program Menù.

Hope this helps you.

Regards

[keefie]

This definitely got me unblocked. Thank you.

Now onto the next issue, how to propagate the ALLUSERS selection - made by the user while running InstallerNew - to InstallerExisting. I have found this thread but it refers to directly using msiexe instead of the Group Policy Wizard,
http://forums.installaware.com/viewtopi ... 71&start=0

[FrancescoT]

Dear Keefie,

just add ALLUSERS parameter in action string of "(Un)Install MSI Package" plugin.

Example; ALLUSERS=TRUE

if you want to pass directly the variable value of your running setup use;
ALLUSERS=$ALLUSERS$ (having care that "(Un)Install MSI Package" is executed after any ALLUSERS modifications ... as with dialog selection).

Regards

[keefie]

Thanks for trying to solve this problem but for whatever reason your suggestion above does not work with my installers.

Also given that I have this problem too,
http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewt ... f=2&t=8662
then I have two showstoppers that I've been unable to solve in several days plus I have to deal with the inability to run the Group Policy Wizard from the command line then I'm not sure it is possible for me to pursue the modular approach of chaining together installers if using InstallAware.

As I am only using InstallAware to build all of my installers and I'm constantly being shown this promise on your home page,
"Consolidate multiple setup projects into one advanced installer"
this is somewhat disappointing.

[FrancescoT]

Dear Keefie,

With my personal projects often I have combined installations packages without any problem.

If you can give me much more information or a sample that reproduces your issue, I will be happy to try to help you.

In case you do not want to share files using the forum, please contact me at: [email protected] .

Then also, if you just create a project from scratch and add some runtimes as you like, all the runtimes packages are mainly executed using MSI setup files.
Doing this you can easly verify how setup packages are combined in a project with InstallAware.

Let me know.

Regards

[keefie]

I suspect the async problem maybe related to the size of the msi installer being invoked by the plugin. The problem is not so obvious with our smaller installer, the problem is with the 250+MB installer which cannot be sent via email.

As I see the same problem via both direct invocation of msiexec.exe and using the plugin this async behavior maybe directly related to the underlying msiexec.exe rather than the plugin itself.

[FrancescoT]

Please refer to my answer with your other post.

http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewt ... 828#p31828

Regards

[keefie]

Thank you for combing the two treads, much appreciated.

[FrancescoT]

I have posted a reply to the other topic:

http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewt ... 828#p31828

Regards