If so, is there a chance for the user to read those messages?
There are cases where the very act of chaining fails (the main setup runs till the end, then at the point where the chained package should be started, the setup is rolled back instead). This currently leads to a "silent roll-back" without any descriptive error message. 😞
That sounds consistent with most errors in a Windows Installer package. Is there anything of note in a verbose log file? ISChain.exe itself is kept as simple as possible to avoid any errors directly in it, so it's more likely one of the installation it chains is having problems.
Probably you are right that the ultimate cause of the error is in one of the installations taking part in the chain, possibly including the "master".
However, there are cases when it would be very helpful to get at least a hint why a chained installation does not start (there is just no log entry from the chained package).
The other day, I have posted such an example in that thread where I don't get any clue why a chained package does not start if the "master" is a major upgrade with RemoveExistingProducts scheduled just before InstallFinalize.
