Is their more than one place to set a condition for a feature to be selected by default or "checked"? Creating a suite project and adding the features/packages, I built the project and was testing the installation when I noticed two of my features were prechecked... I knew I had not put any conditions in to precheck any of my features. I double checked the settings ( the "Condition" setting ) on all my features and it does not show a condition for any of them. I also noticed that if I unchecked every feature and hit install every single feature tries to install. Some features are tied to others when they are selected. Can the .exe files some how manipulate the suite project durring install?
If no conditions are present on features in a suite project, the feature will be selected for install by default. A condition can be used to have the feature selected or deselected by default (based on whether the condition evaluates to true or false).
Regarding what is installed based on feature selection and feature relationships, there aren't currently any concepts of features requiring other features be installed if they are selected (with the exception that child features cannot install if their parent is not selected). The packages that are run during the installation (first time install) are based on the features selected on the selection dialog, and whether the associated packages are eligible and not already installed (based on detection conditions).
You can gain some additional information on what will be installed by creating a debug log for your suite installation. Information about what is logged in the debug log is available here: Troubleshooting Issues by Logging a Suite Installation
EXE packages have no interaction with a suite installation other than the exit code they return when finished. MSI packages can have progress information captured and displayed on the suite's progress dialog.
Looks like all of the strange things hapening with my feature tree has to do with two of my features/packages... when I remove the two in question, the tree starts work exactly as you describe... all are checked by default when I run the project and none are installed when I deselect them all (unlike before, it tried to install them all if I deselected all of the features)... I have no idea why the features made the tree to act crazy
