Check Windows Installer Service for Readiness...VB.NET

[Superfreak3]

Hi there,

Does anyone know of or have any code that I can use in a Deferred in System Context, Asynch - No Wait custom action that I can use to check if the MSI engine is ready to run another installation.

You may have seen my post about chaining a 64 bit installer to a 32 bit installer. Well, that won't work for us...

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/heaths/archive/2009/07/03/installation-sequence-restrictions-for-multi-package-transactions.aspx .

So, what I'm doing now is actually installing a 64 bit installer with our 32 bit app. On a 64 bit machine, a Custom Action widget compiled for x64 fires and installs/removes on uninstall the 64 bit pieces. All seems to work OK, but at times I get the 'another installation is in progress' message when the 64 bit installer runs.

What I've done just to get a build to QA was to add a 30 second pause in the Custom Action widget which allows the main or calling install process to clear. Clunky, I know so I want to replace this with some code to monitor the Installer engine to see when it clears for my second installation.

I found this, but I'm not a C or C# guy so VB.NET code or any other information would be greatly appreciated...

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/heaths/archive/2006/01/23/516454.aspx .

Thanks in advance!!

[Superfreak3]

I just created a widget to monitor msiexec in processes. When count of instances <=1 I fire the other installer.