Hello, I'm evaluating Install Shield ability to chain installation of multiple msi. Look for me what "Suite Project" can do this. I have requirement to install prerequisite, like .NET Framework 4.0 Full(I prefer webdownload), but looks like the prerequisites doesn't supported by this type of project. Also I should install VSTO 2010 in case if user selects to install MS Office 2007/2010 addons and PIA 2003 and VSTO 2005 SE in case if user wan't to install MS Office 2003 addon, so I need conditional prerequisites install support.
1. What the best way to install prerequisites with conditions on Suite Project type?
I think I can workaround the problem with prerequisites by creating dummy Basic MSI project which will require .NET and will be required by primary packages. 2. Does this will work?
The best approach here is to create a package for each of what you currently think of as prerequisites. Set that package to be a "dependency package" by changing its "Package Type" setting. Then use the package conditions to specify when it's eligible or detected. Perhaps identify what conditions to set by examining the ones on the prerequisite in the prerequisite editor.
This is a bit of a pain point on Suite projects right now; we're looking to ease this in the future by allowing some way of importing prerequistes. But since packages are more expressive than prerequisites were, you can almost always create better conditions in a package than you can get by copying the prerequisite.
You could create a dummy .msi project and call its exe, but I wouldn't suggest that approach. I'd suggest the above - incorporate the same ideas that the prerequisites already describe, but do it the way suites understand natively.
if I replace my current prerequisites with packages, would it be possible to reuse such a package in a different suite? In addition, is it possible to set the order in which the packages are installed?
Package order is determined by the order of the packages in the Packages view. It's quite possible to share packages across multiple suites, but for today it's a very manual process. (My preferred way at the moment is to copy and paste snippets of the suite's XML.)
