Hi all, I'm new to installshield and could really use some help.
What I want to do is check if an application exists on a users machine, if it doesn't then launch that applications exe and install it. If possible I want this applications exe to run in the background of my install. Is this even possible?
I've been searching the forums and have found a lot of information, but nothing that will walk me through doing this. If I could please get step by step instructions, I'd really appreciate it.
I am not certain what type of setup project you are developing but if you are using a pure InstallScript then look up LaunchAppAndWait in the help documentation.
If you are using a Basic MSI then you will want to read about Windows Installer custom actions in help.
Yes, you can launch the EXE and have it run in the background. The single caveat is that you CANNOT have two MSI packages running simultaneously. For instance if your setup is a Basic MSI or InstallScript MSI and you then call a custom action to start another setup.exe that contains an embedded MSI project then the second setup will fail. The only solution then is to create a wrapper that chains several of the setups together. Also in this case it will not be possible to run the setups Synchronously.
Quite right, a lot depends on the project type; MSI supports the System Search view to locate existing software, and InstallScript has the FindAllFiles function (and an OnAppSearch event function).
