How can I break up huge msi's?

[jdkc4d]

I am fairly new to the msi packaging game. Some of the msi's I have built end up being huge. I am sure there is a way to break this up, like put the application in one msi and the data in the other, but I have no idea how to do it. For example, I just build a package for ProE, and it is almost 2gb in size. While that would be fine for a few machines, it is going to be pushed through active directory to multiple locations. The network cannot handle this type of load, and buring to a dvd is not an option for so many machines. If there is a way to do this, how do I do it in AdminStudio? Do I need to use Tuner, or the InstallShield thing? Please Help.

[David_Thornley]

You can use Editor or Tuner to create transforms for each of your user groups. The transforms will modify the MSI package at runtime so that it will only install the files that are required for that particular user. When AD installs the package only the files that are being installed will be coppied to the target machine.

[jdkc4d]

Its not different options that are the problem, it is huge applications. Here is an example. ProE has of package of 1.8gb in size. This package is the base package. It will need to be deployed by the end of the week to 100 machines. Because they are using the software to teach classes, they all have the same configuration.

Unfortuanately, our network here is sketchy at best. Some labs are set at 100, and others are only set at 10. Because of some weird University mandate, we have to deploy our packages at startup instead of allowing them to run with elevated privlages when the user selects them. The likelyhood of pulling down a package that is nearly 2gb with no packetloss, is well, not good. However, if I could break the package up into smaller peices, that were interdependant on one another, it would be more likely to run smoothly. Think of it like disk spanning .zip archives. It would be something like, proe.msi requires proe1.msi and proe2.msi, and runs with transform proe.mst.

I was messing with this yesterday during lunch, and I think you can create a blank msi using installshield, and then maybe add portions of the original msi to this "empty" package.