Unable to install Chained Msi's

[okhalid]

Hi,

I have been trying to my parent msi install two chained msi's (packaged in the source dir). The two chained MSI's are successfully copied into the installation directory but never get executed.

In in my architecture, I have two features; featA and featB. The two child MSI's are linked with these two features in a way that I am using install conditions as the following "Not Installed And &featA=2" and the same for 2nd MSI "Not Installed And featB=2". For removal conditions, i have REMOVE="ALL" set.

I have tested the featA.msi and featB.msi individually. They properly get installed when I do it manually but when packaged in to the parent msi, they get copied but not installed.

I have spent quite good deal of time trying to fix this but haven't managed yet, so any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Omer


P.S I have Windows Installer 4.5 installed on my machine.

[Lurean]

I think the problem might be in your install conditions. If I recall correctly &Feat = 2 means the feature is being uninstalled. &Feat=3 is for when the feature is installed.

If each of the chained packages you are using is dependant on specific features you might also want to consider looking into using them as Feature level prerequisites instead of chained MSIs unless you need your installer to finish before installing the others.

[okhalid]

Lurean wrote:
I think the problem might be in your install conditions. If I recall correctly &Feat = 2 means the feature is being uninstalled. &Feat=3 is for when the feature is installed.

If each of the chained packages you are using is dependant on specific features you might also want to consider looking into using them as Feature level prerequisites instead of chained MSIs unless you need your installer to finish before installing the others.

The documentation I received from Acresso, there is table for feature actions:

-1 : no action
1: feature advertised
2: not installed
3: installed locally
4: installed to run from source

The way I interpreted &Feature=2 is that since it's not installed, then install it.

My root installer doesn't necessarily have to finish before the chained MSI's but how does feature pre-requisites works?

[Lurean]

during installation the feature level 2 for the feature action means it is not installed and won't be installed.

the Feature level represents the change that will be applied. So if you are installing it locally then the feature action would be 3.

Just because a feature is not currently installed does not imply it will be installed. You are thinking in terms of the current Feature state, not the action that will be taken during the installation. When using &Feature you are checking the Action state, not the installed state. For the current state of the feature you would use !Feature.

for more detail on when and how these are evaluated check the help files under the "Conditional Statement Syntax" topic.

As to feature prerequisites, they work like normal prerequsites but you just select the features you want them applied to instead of having them applied to the root level or application feature. Help topic "Setup Prerequisites vs Feature prerequisites"

[Nio_the_Champ_2]

There are lots of limitations to the chained install. I was stuck up with the similar issue and was looking in wrong directions. Then came to know that if parent install needs a reboot, chain gets broken.

What i would expect is if any of my chain install requires reboot it should be deferred till the last install in chain.