Bootstrapping Questions

[RainMaker]

I am about to embark on a project that I am certain will need a bootstrapper.

I have a pretty hefty (Installscript MSI) installer that installs on both 32bit and 64bit Windows Server 2003 only due to some specific permissions that I set for a web site.
Looking down the road I would like to have an installer that will run on Windows Server 2008 sp2 or r2. I know that I will need different permissions for this site as well as other things.

My first question is does a bootstrapper make sense for this type of application? If not what other options do I have?

My second question is if I do a bootstrapper, since I have an installscript MSI currently, I am thinking about doing just a good ol Installscript project that will launch these other installers. Does that make sense?

Also, when I do create this project, should I launch the setup.exe's of the different types of installers with the installscript project or should I launch the MSI's ? Will I need to know some sort of command line parameters to launch the other installer?

I did find a very recent thread here that almost answered my question:
http://community.flexerasoftware.com/showthread.php?t=191674

I did feature flags for my 32 and 64 bit setup on Win2k3

Thank you in advance.

[gridman]

You can launch the other installers from InstallScript code. Just use LaunchAppAndWait(). I believe one of the parameters is for command-line arguments, so that would be taken care of.

I'm not clear on why you need a separate bootstrapper. If you include Setup.exe in your release, then it will take care of installing all the prerequisites you need.

If InstallShield does not have a prerequisite you are looking for, you can create your own. I've done it lots of times and it works great. The facility is very flexible. You can specify launch conditions, the file to run, command-line arguments, etc.

[RainMaker]

gridman wrote:
You can launch the other installers from InstallScript code. Just use LaunchAppAndWait(). I believe one of the parameters is for command-line arguments, so that would be taken care of.

I'm not clear on why you need a separate bootstrapper. If you include Setup.exe in your release, then it will take care of installing all the prerequisites you need.

hmm. maybe I am missing something then. I have an Installscript MSI project that compiles to a setup.exe. That project is tailored for Win2K3 and will not run on any other OS other than Win2K3.

In order for me to support Win2K3 and above, I need to create another or (copy paste and change current ) project. Which will also build to an executable. So I will have two executables. From there, yes I will be using LaunchAppAndWait().

Not certain if that clarifies anything with regards to your post.