Everybody comes! Design a install project discuttion

[zhangweisjz]

Hi masters,
I am designing a deployment project. My requirement is like this:

1, I have two individual products, for example, notepad and word. They all have own installer: notepad.msi, and word.msi;

2, Each of them has prerequisites. For example, to install notepad.msi; you need to install notepad_prerequisite.msi; to install word.msi, you need to install word_prerequisite.msi. Moreover, the two prerequisites is not listed by default in installshield distributors.

3, I want to have a deployment project to install the four products above together(Notepad.msi, Notepad_prerequisite.msi, Word.msi, word_prerequisite.msi) , as a bundle. And ideally, the order would be: install two prequisite installer, and then install the two products.

4, It would be perfect if the screen could be like this

________________________________________________
|You are installing the following products: |
|aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa |
|Notepad_prerequisite [installed] aaaaaaaaaaaa |
|Word_prerequisite aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa|
|aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa |
|Notepad |
|Word |
|aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa |
|progress bar_____________________________________|

Ideally, when install one of the four intallers, a progress bar will display as below, and after installed, a installed mark(tick or other signs) could show. This is very much like the screen I see when I install Visual Studio and some other products.

My question is:
1, is InstallShield able to do this? If not, is there other tools or development method I could use?
2, As requirement 4 is a plus, if it can not be achieved using InstallShield, how can I achieve requirement 1,2,3 using InstallShield?
Please give your capable hands and thank you very much.

[Roman1]

Hello,
you can write a simple start.bat
and call all of the setups in sequence.

[MichaelU]

You can probably implement this today as some combination of feature prerequisites (prerequisites tied to features), and/or MSI chaining (in the releases view). Depending on your timescale, however, we have some interesting options that we're working on for our next release, so keep your eyes open for that too.

[zhangweisjz]

Roman1 wrote:
Hello,
you can write a simple start.bat
and call all of the setups in sequence.

Thanks. But I am afraid this method doesn't have Installation features like upgrade, maintenance window... So maybe we need better methods.

[zhangweisjz]

MichaelU wrote:
You can probably implement this today as some combination of feature prerequisites (prerequisites tied to features), and/or MSI chaining (in the releases view). Depending on your timescale, however, we have some interesting options that we're working on for our next release, so keep your eyes open for that too.

Great Michael! Very happy to know that there will be interesting features...

About my requirements, can I make requirement 4 in installshield?
Also you mentioned, I can use feature prerequisites. But for me, the feature prerequisites is my two products: notepad_prerequisites.exe, and word_prerequisite.exe, how can I make that? Thanks in advance.

[zhangweisjz]

Another question about chained MSI,
How can I make the final result summary dialog show that:
You have successfully installed the following components:
Notepad.exe
Word.exe

Or make it display as:

Notepad.exe Successful;
Word.exe Failed

Thank you.

[MichaelU]

If you go with chaining, they either all succeed or all fail. If the first succeeds and the second fails, it will rollback and remove the first. So on the bright side, it removes the need to offer to show which installs are complete and which failed. On the down side, it doesn't sound like it would do what you want.

With prerequisites, you can allow an installation to fail and then query the user whether to continue. If you do this, while there won't be a clean dialog like you mention, it should be pretty clear to the user that they said to continue after a particular prerequisite failed.

Your point 4 about a dialog showing what will happen is possible but not trivial. You would have to store information about what's available in properties and build a custom dialog that references the properties in a useful fashion. To make a prerequisite (feature or setup), use the prerequisite editor from the Tools menu.