Stringing MSI's Together

[Spider1701]

I will need to String several MSI's together as part of a large application rollout. ArcGIS 9.3 Each MSI will need to have a command line argument and a transform applied to it. Is there any documentation on how to do this, best practices etc?

thanks

[Cary_R]

Hi There,

I can't speak for Best Practices, since the package chaining feature in MSI is rather new. However, my own take on it is to run the original chainer as normal after having set the MSI logging policy (see: http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=Q110697).

This will let you sniff the order and the commandline options used of the various packages when looking at the logs in %TEMP% ordered by modified date, and then define the same order and paramters in your chainer setup.

--Cary

[Spider1701]

Cary R wrote:
Hi There,

I can't speak for Best Practices, since the package chaining feature in MSI is rather new. However, my own take on it is to run the original chainer as normal after having set the MSI logging policy (see: http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=Q110697).

This will let you sniff the order and the commandline options used of the various packages when looking at the logs in %TEMP% ordered by modified date, and then define the same order and paramters in your chainer setup.

--Cary

Cary,

Thanks for the help however the link you provided does not work, when i click on it, i get a blank page.

Eric:(

[Spider1701]

Cary R wrote:
Hi There,

I can't speak for Best Practices, since the package chaining feature in MSI is rather new. However, my own take on it is to run the original chainer as normal after having set the MSI logging policy (see: http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=Q110697).

This will let you sniff the order and the commandline options used of the various packages when looking at the logs in %TEMP% ordered by modified date, and then define the same order and paramters in your chainer setup.

--Cary

Also Cary,

I am very new to using admin studio so i am unfamiliar with using the package chaining feature at all. The Order i need these msi's to install in is known, So i'm not sure how the logging will help the process. I will need to probably have a setup wrapper? perhaps. I will need a batch file to run first to launch the complete uninstall of the previous version of the software (written tested it works) then when that is complete i will need to run approx 6 msi's one after the other, each on sucessfull completeion of the preceding msi. If there is not any documentation on that process is there a contact at Flexara that has some experiance with this process?

Thanks

Eric

[Cary_R]

Hi Eric,

I apologize; the link got messed up because I just pasted it without bbcode, and a parenthesis got added to the end. Let's try again:

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=Q110697

As far as what the logs do for you, they will let you see the commandline parameters normally used in a silent install for these MSI packages. Although, you might already be aware of this.

It sounds like there's a few things you're trying to do that are documented.

For running the batch file, see:

Q111515: HOWTO: Launch a Batch File with Windows Installer
http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=Q111515

Note that if the previous setup is an MSI package, this won't work if the parent install is running silently (it will error, since only one 'Execute Sequence' can run at a time to make system changes). I might suggest using a Major Upgrade item for this if this is the case:

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/doc/Helpnet/installshield15helplib/AddingMajorUpgradeItem.htm

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/doc/Helpnet/installshield15helplib/ConfiguringMajorUpgradeProps.htm

Now, for using the Windows Installer 4.5 Package Chaining feature (which we now support in InstallShield), this will allow you to daisy chain your MSI packages consecutively like you're looking for:

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/doc/Helpnet/installshield16helplib_sp1/ChainerAdding.htm

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/doc/Helpnet/installshield16helplib_sp1/ChainedMSIPackages.htm

So, I think this covers what you're looking for. If you run into issues with this, however, we do have support contracts available for contacting our tech support teams. You can call your sales person if you're not sure if you have a contract or not ((847) 466-6000) or if you know your contract number, you can call support directly ((847) 413-2896).

[Spider1701]

Cary R wrote:
Hi Eric,

I apologize; the link got messed up because I just pasted it without bbcode, and a parenthesis got added to the end. Let's try again:

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=Q110697

As far as what the logs do for you, they will let you see the commandline parameters normally used in a silent install for these MSI packages. Although, you might already be aware of this.

It sounds like there's a few things you're trying to do that are documented.

For running the batch file, see:

Q111515: HOWTO: Launch a Batch File with Windows Installer
http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/selfservice/viewContent.do?externalId=Q111515

Note that if the previous setup is an MSI package, this won't work if the parent install is running silently (it will error, since only one 'Execute Sequence' can run at a time to make system changes). I might suggest using a Major Upgrade item for this if this is the case:

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/doc/Helpnet/installshield15helplib/AddingMajorUpgradeItem.htm

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/doc/Helpnet/installshield15helplib/ConfiguringMajorUpgradeProps.htm

Now, for using the Windows Installer 4.5 Package Chaining feature (which we now support in InstallShield), this will allow you to daisy chain your MSI packages consecutively like you're looking for:

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/doc/Helpnet/installshield16helplib_sp1/ChainerAdding.htm

http://kb.flexerasoftware.com/doc/Helpnet/installshield16helplib_sp1/ChainedMSIPackages.htm

So, I think this covers what you're looking for. If you run into issues with this, however, we do have support contracts available for contacting our tech support teams. You can call your sales person if you're not sure if you have a contract or not ((847) 466-6000) or if you know your contract number, you can call support directly ((847) 413-2896).

Does adminstudio 9.0 support this or will i need to upgrade to 9.5?

[Cary_R]

Spider1701 wrote:
Does adminstudio 9.0 support this or will i need to upgrade to 9.5?

I believe AdminStudio 9.0 has InstallShield 2009 included, which supports package chaining.

[Spider1701]

Cary R wrote:
I believe AdminStudio 9.0 has InstallShield 2009 included, which supports package chaining.

Cary,

I appreciate your help in this matter, but i have a new wrinkle. the ArcGis application requirest 2 .msp's to be installed after the first MSI (editor) before the rest of the apllication 4 msi's can be installed. We have tried to install all the msi's one after the other manually to see if the rest could be installed and patched afterwards however one of the msi's failed and requested that the patches be applied first. Is there a way to run an msi then msp's and then get back the the rest of the msi's?

Dased and Confused