Creating separate MSI and setup.exe

[GalitH]

Hi,

I am beginning to evaluate InstallShield 2009 to create a Basic MSI device driver installer. In the build options I saw that either setup.exe or MSI can be generated, but I am required to provide both a setup.exe and MSI, similar to the output of Visual Studio Deployment Projects. We are not allowed to have any additional installation files, so the "uncompressed" and "custom" build options do not apply.

The generated setup.exe should of course just be a launcher to the generated MSI, which includes the driver files etc.

I would appreciate you help on whether this is possible, and how to configure InstallShield to achieve this.

Thanks,
Galit

[mr_slava]

In Release properties choose media type "CD-ROM" and release configuration "Compress all files". This settings will give you MSI with launcher. Files will be compressed into msi package, exactly what you want.

[GalitH]

Hi Slava,

I tried your suggestion, and the output included a data.cab file in addition to the setup.exe and and MSI file. I see that this is in accordance with the manual:

"Note: The output of the build process depends on your media type, compression, and spanning settings.
• If you choose a Network Image media type and the Compress all files option, all your data files are compressed into
Setup.exe or your .msi database, depending on whether you include the Setup.exe installation launcher.
• If you choose a CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, or Custom media type, along with the Compress all files option, each disk
image contains a DataN.cab file that contains your data files."

Any ideas ?

Thanks,
Galit

[mr_slava]

I am very glad to hear you have read the manual before you post the question 😉 But the fact is that your request is absolutely valid and there is no problem to get MSI + launcher output, .cab will be included into MSI. I am attaching screenshots of settings for configuration you would like to get. This will produce exactly what you want.

[GalitH]

Hi Slava,

Thanks for the info.

It took some time since it turns out that in InstallShield 2009 the Release values are separated into categories by Tabs and are slightly different, so I tried with InstallShield 12, and used the exact values you did (except for file paths), but still a .cab file with the files to be installed is created.

Perhaps I should look in a different place - I'm looking in "Product Configuration 1\Release 1\DiskImages\DISK1" ?

Regards,
Galit

[mr_slava]

Oh, bad news Galit,
I’ve created test project to play with the settings myself and realize I screw it all up. I have mess the “Network Image media type” with “CD-ROM”. And as you read in the help the DataN.cab will be created in “CD_ROM / DVD-ROM” media type. You cannot get rid of it. In the other side if you will use “Network Image” type, you may get just .msi compressed package without launcher. Sorry this is your options.
Fill guilty for my previous statement, so I want to make something back. We are using self-extracting zip on the top of “CD-ROM” media type output. So I don’t really care how many files the build produces, everything still will be pack into one self-extracting exe, which silently extract files into temp location and run launcher on its own. So user just needs to click on the single executable and installation runs. Also it is convenient way to distribute it through the web. I just thought maybe this is your case too 😉

[GalitH]

Hi Slava,

The reason I tried to get both setup.exe and MSI was to remain backward-compatible with the previous installer versions, which did not use InstallShield. I am hoping that our customers will indeed accept this new format.


Thanks for your kind help,
Galit