Hello people, i have one doubt with design a new type of project...
I was thinking how to desing the following installation, and I haven't got idea.... a little help would be welcome.
I want to distribute into a setup.exe a collection of programs ( for example A, B and C), and I will call "Basic Pack". No problem.
But now, I want to create a secundary package, "the Extended Pack", that installs another collection of programs (D and E) that will work with the programs of BASIC package. This last package can't be installed if "the basic pack" is not installed previously in the machine (by Install Condition).
I know how to do these through two diferent packages, it's more or less easy.... but I want to improve the add or remove programs information and the uninstallation procedure. What I want:
When I had installed only the basic package (mostly), I want the normal behaviour and information in 'Add or Remove Programs' window.
When I had installed both packages, only have one entry, "The Extended Pack", in "Add or Remove programs" window, and if I uninstall the pack by this way, then extended and basic pack was removed.
In summary, I think that I don't want 2 different packs, only a BasicMSI and "quickpatch package" that change the PRODUCTNAME property. But I dont kwon how to resolve this problem, and i'm not sure what is the best way for do this.
If I understand your requirements, it sound to me like you should be able to do this in one Basic MSI package by setting up two features, one for the Basic package and one for the Extended package. Make the Basic Feature a requirement of the Extended feature so that if Extended is selected, Basic will be installed as well.
Then set a custom action to change the ProductName property if Extended is selected, for the Add\Remove Programs display.
I don't think you can properly do this with two separate packages, because you can't properly uninstall package A from package B.
It's mandatory for me make two different pakages, standards of my manager.
The programs of the second package work with the first but 9 out of 10 times will not be necessary. The most logycal distribution is that, two packages that work like 1. If a Custom Acction was possible from a patch ....
