I know this is not the correct forum but I'm not sure where would be appropriate.
Anyway, we are currently doing requirements for an application that will chain msis together and run all the UI for them. This seems to be a growing trend with applications becoming more complicated. I just read a white paper "Agility Trends in Packaged Software" https://connect.microsoft.com/site/sitehome.aspx?SiteID=432&wa=wsignin1.0 which highlights this issue and hints that install vendors may be working on such an application.
Is this true or does anyone have any similar applications that they use that may be useful to us.
For an example of a Setup built to these wishes, look at SQL Server 2005, which is a Setup.exe displaying dialogs, and a number of MSIs that are installed after the last dialog was shown. Another way of looking at this is Prerequisites by InstallShield, but in the InstallShield implementation the prerequisites are installed before the UI of the Setup is shown.
The actual problem that everybody is trying to solve is that nested installs are discouraged because of servicing (i.e. patching) problems. Merge Modules are an alternative, but they have servicing problems too.
The need for this functionality was discussed extensively at the last customer lab... I'm sure IS is hard at work and I'm sure we'd all like to be in the loop on that since it effects our future plans also.
