After reading all the thread concerning chained MSIs, it doesn't seem like there is a satisfactory working scenario.
Here's my scenario in a Basic MSI project:
Parent Install uses Setup.exe with MSI 4.5 prereq set to "Reboot the machine and resume on reboot "
Child 1 is a Single MSI Image (set to Basic UI, and streamed in)
Child 2 is a Single MSI Image (set to Basic UI, and streamed in)
The Parent and Child installs are bare bones. So are the applications that are installed. It's the simplest example I could think of.
If I run the Parent install on XP SP2, MSI 4.5 is installed, reboot occurs, Parent Install and Child 1 are installed. Child 2 is not.
If I don't do any prereq's, the same thing happens on XP SP2 with MSI 4.5, Parent is installed, Child 1 is installed, Child 2 is not.
On Vista with MSI 4.5 installed, Parent and Child 1 are installed, but not Child 2. This is with no reboots.
So, as it stands now, it doesn't look there is any way to do a Visual Studio style install, where you do one or more reboots and all the packages are installed. Even though I don't need that degree of capability, I thought I could achieve part of it with MSI 4.5.
gridman, you would have to make sure to set the Install condition on each of the chained installs to the feature that you want that chained install to be associated with. So you want it to run if the feature is to be install or is installed but not to be uninstalled the set it to something like this:
((&Feature=3) Or (!Feature=3)) And Not ((&Feature=2) AND (!Feature=3)))
By the way if you know or anyone else know - how does patching and Web installs for downloading selected features work in a chained environment? Can chained handle these or is there a better recommended way to handle these if that is what we and to support?
