Basic planning question

[jimdalrymp]

I have a VB6 application that users may install and connect to a remote SQL Server or they may wish to install SQL SErver Express 2005 with the application. I want to give them the option to install just the app or the app and dbms.

What would be the best way to do this? Additional prerequisites are required if the dbms is to be installed, so it would be good if the installer can offer two options and have two sets of prerequisites. Does this mean that I would want to create two "editions" of the installation? Is that how I can have two different sets of prerequisites? Is there a better way?

Thanks for the help!

Jim

[CandiceJones]

Hi Jim,

You will essentially use MSIcode scripting to obtain the effect you want, possibly with custom dialog editing as well.

You do not need to create two separate installers - just have one which offers both options and branches dynamically at runtime based on what the end-user chose in a dialog box, for example.

We have a whitepaper on building custom application runtimes, so please check it out as it offers helpful ideas.

[jimdalrymp]

I read the Extending the Application Runtimes View Whitepaper and skimmed the MSICode Scripting Technology Whitepaper.

I was hoping to be able to create a conditional installer without having to write msi code. It seems that you can fairly easily create file groups and assign them to a feature that is chosen by the user to either install or not install. I can follow conceptually that you could also write conditional msi code linked to a customized dialog box that would install certain file groups based on the user's choice.

It is still not clear where runtimes fit into all of this. It is not clear how to have one installation option with one set of runtime dependencies and another with another set of runtime dependencies. Do you have any examples or can you point me to some additional documentation that would help clear this up for me?

Thank you.

[CandiceJones]

Essentially, you would just move code away from the prereqs block where it normally lies, and place it inside a feature instead. Just a matter of copy-paste, really