I've looked around for quite some time on the forums and I don't see any definitive answer to this question: Can a single installer be created to install both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of a program?
The general feeling that I'm getting is that this cannot be done using Windows Installer, but it can be done with some workarounds on an InstallScript project. Can anyone confirm or deny this?
Depends. If your app is 32 bit or .Net based, a single 32 bit installer will work on both 64 and 32 bit machines. But if you have any 64 bit components then I believe you need to have separate ones. Jamie
I'm not sure how well it would work, but you could always try a small experiment and see. However, if you need to do anything on the 64 bit side of the OS (registry entries, etc.) it may not work if the installer is not 64 bit.
However, I have managed to support itanium and x64 installations using 5.5 up until last year, so I guess nothing is impossible...except maybe patches...:p
I have to support both and I *refuse* to author two different ISM files and keep them in sync. I use a separate configuration for x64 and override the Template Summary to x64;1033 (default is Intel:1033 for x86.) Then my build script pre-processes the ISM file using the XML DOM and sets all components to 64-bit.
The one thing I am wrestling with is the "Program Files" vs "Program Files (x86)" directory. We have some apps that are x64 only and some that are x86 but can be installed on a 64-bit system. We want all apps (x86 and x64) on a 64-bit machine to install certain files (logs, XML files) to a common location under "C:\Program Files" even if x86 binaries are installed under "Program Files (x86)". Haven't quite figured out how to make that happen yet...
