I'm looking for a tool (preferably not InstallShield, and also preferably cheap/Free) that supports Chained MSI Installations. I've got several small installations that need to be able to be deployed separately, but also as one group, and I'd like to not have to maintain multiple installers.
It looks like I need Windows Installer 4.5 to do this properly, but I can't seem to find to much info when I'm looking around for what version of Installer is supported.
The MSI 4.5 functionality is just a set of APIs that allow bootstrapper/chainers to do smarter things for multiple MSIs. You still need a bootstrapper/chainer to install multiple packages. In WiX v3.6 there will Burn.
Incidentally, it used to be possible--although not particularly easy--to "nest" or embed other MSIs into one parent, but it involved tweaking custom actions and such to ensure that the nested programs were removed upon removal of the parent, etc. Sadly, this feature is "deprecated" and thus no longer recommended by Microsoft. Here's how to do it in a Visual Studio installer project... but creating a bootstrapper with WiX would be more advised.
What you need is a bootstrapper. Using and InstallShield or Wix will created an MSI themselves which when that is running will not allow the other smaller MSIs to run. If you already have the smaller MSIs to run a bootstrapper is all you need.
MSDN has a free one you can download that plugs into VS2008 and uses MSBuild to compile. What you will probably need to do is create packages for your MSIs and put them in the bootstrapper as prerequisites. This will allow you to set it up to run them in a particular order.
Here is the MSDN link: MSDN Bootstrapper Manifest Generator
Look at NSIS
Related
I have question regarding WiX/MSI packaging, wanted to check feasibility, I have Installer1 bundle with n number of files(probably 100) and have another small installer2 with less no of files(near about 20 files). Now my question is can I package small installer2 into bigger installer1. This is similar approach as most of installers package vcruntime installers in their installers.
Experts do you see any issues in this approach?
You may want to ask question, what type components installer2 has- so it kernel mode drivers and user mode services and some DLLs.
Also you may suggest why we are not bringing one by one component, instead packaging one installer into another installer.
Chained Setups: WiX's Burn module can create setup.exe files with embedded installers that can run in sequence. Installshield also has a feature for this called Suite Projects - see screenshot here.
Hello Burn: Here is a small, hands-on example of a Burn source.
More on Burn: Some more details on WiX / Burn versus other deployment tools.
Two, separate answers here on Burn, Installshield and Advanced Installer
Short, ad-hoc list of various common MSI tools here.
Links:
WIX Toolset I want the ActionData log to continue to be written as a scroll
WIX Installer with modern look and feel
I have an old installer that is made with InstallShield 2015, its non-MSI based (I tried opening it with 7zip and could not --> non-MSI based, am I right?).
In general, I need to stop using InstallShield and migrate to Wix.
Is it possible some how to convert InstallShield it to Wix?
Using Wix, I need to detect if a previous version (the InstallShield version) is currently installed and automatically uninstall it and then continue with the normal Wix process. Is such a thing possible?
Thank You :-)
I'll add a quick answer for reference, though the problem appears solved already.
If the old Installshield setup is an MSI, you can use dark.exe from the WiX toolkit to "disassemble" an MSI into WiX source code (dark.exe can also decompile WiX setup.exe bundles - there is a somewhat messy description of this here: How can I compare the content of two (or more) MSI files?).
After some cleanup you can compile the WiX source to a new WiX-built MSI. A bit of knowledge and experience is needed for the cleanup to be successful (eliminating GUI sections, add a WiX GUI, realign source paths, clean up binary stream tables, etc... - not trivial, but not rocket science :-).
If the old setup was a legacy installer (not MSI), you can convert it to MSI by using a repackager tool to capture changes done to the system during installation and convert them to an MSI. A lot of knowledge is required to clean up such a capture. If you know the product it is often better to code a new setup "by hand". Or if you are in a large corporation chances are you will have a "repackaging team" available somewhere who will have the expertise to do this job for you.
Yes, old setups can be uninstalled as part of your new MSI.
As you discovered if the old setup was an MSI you can simply use a major upgrade to remove it during the new WiX install.
If the old version was a legacy setup things can get considerably more involved often requiring you to "record" a dialog response file to feed to the uninstaller function of the old setup.exe file. Not at all trivial, and quite error prone. Incidentally one of the major benefits of MSI is the completely suppressible GUI.
For reference, here is an old answer with information on dealing with the infamous setup.exe files that we frequently have to uninstall and upgrade:
How can I use powershell to run through an installer? The setup.exe can be many different things: Installshield Setup, Advanced Installer Setup, Inno Setup, Self-Extracting Zip-Archive, a proprietary setup format, the list goes on...
Since I wasn't a part of my company when our build process was designed and implemented (and has been successful for quite a few years now), I found out that there were things that were being done that may be looked at as 'hacks' to MSI 'purists'. However, in order to get a workable installer with Visual Studio 2012, I've been doing the best I can to mimic what was being done with the .vdproj files in Visual Studio 2010. Of the many snags I've hit, this one seems to be the last one that I can't resolve.
As part of our build process with Visual Studio 2010, we built our code and created a Framework MSI on one VM. Then we took that Framework MSI and installed it on a different VM. After the framework had been installed, we built our product code and created a Product MSI off of it. This created a Product dependence on our Framework. What this meant was that when installing on a client machine, the bootstrapper needed to install the Framework first followed by the Product. On uninstall our documentation stated to either have it handled through ARP or by command line 'msiexec /x {Product.msi/#ProductCode}' and then the 'msiexec /x {Framework.msi/#ProductCode}'.
At the time, management determined that the ProductCode would be the easiest way for other product teams to determine if our product had been installed on a machine. This lead them to the decision that they needed to keep a static ProductCode for both the Framework and the Product.
In order to handle upgrades, they had to create a ProductTool.exe that was nothing more than the msiexec wrapped in an executable that took a /ProductCode={#ProductCode} argument.
As part of our bootstrapper, they called:
Install prerequisites (Windows Installer 4.5, .NET 3.5 SP1, SQL Server 2008 R2 Express, Sync 2.1)
ProductTool.exe (Product.msi -- to uninstall the Product.msi)
ProductTool.exe (Framework.msi -- to uninstall the Framework.msi)
Install Framework.msi
Install Product.msi
However, I didn't discover until just recently that the Burn bootstrapper does not allow REINSTALLMODE=amus. In the install logs, it says that it changes it to REINSTALLMODE=vomus. Apparently in order to get that aforementioned process to work on upgrades, they had to set REINSTALLMODE=amus.
UPDATE: I finally got to talk to the original developer of the installer and found out that REINSTALLMODE=amus was used intentionally to revert all of the versioned files (assemblies, DLL files, etc.) and non-versioned files (.config, SQL script, etc.) as a risk minimization and robustness/"self-healing" strategy.
Having said all of that, is it even possible with a standard burn bootstrap application (BA) to set REINSTALLMODE=amus so that I can get the upgrades working? The MSI files have the Property's set, but Burn seems to override it.
No, this is not supported by the Burn engine today. Burn controls the REINSTALLMODE very carefully to correctly handle upgrades and repairs. Using a in REINSTALLMODE is far from a best practice and thus is not supported. Also, it isn't clear why a is necessary in the scenario you described.
Are there are any templates or guidelines for creating a Windows Installer XML (WiX) project for deploying a Petrel plugin?
Are there any reasons for WiX not having been selected as the natural successor to the old *.vdproj/MSI recommendation?
Has anyone tried WiX for Petrel plugins? I'm interested in exchanging ideas and experiences. I'm new to WiX, and find it difficult to get started.
(Off topic: the "new" PIP paradigm is lean and simple, but is a bad fit for enterprise use, where clients expect to be able to repackage an MSI in order to facilitate mass deployment through e.g. group policies. I'll post another question on this.)
MSI deployment is still supported in Ocean/Petrel regardless of the way of MSIs generation (and WiX is just another way to generate them).
In Ocean/Petrel 2012.1 you need to define custom action calling command-line tool PluginManager.exe with /install and /uninstall switch during the installation and uninstallation steps respectively. Custom actions are defined using <CustomAction> tags in WiX. There are two tricks you need to keep in mind when calling PluginManager.exe from MSI custom actions:
you need to supply your MSI installer ID (usually GUID) in /installerId:your_installer_id command-line switch during the installation. This will enable automatic MSI uninstallation of your plug-ins when Petrel is uninstalled
you need to run PluginManager.exe with /runFromInstaller switch during the uninstallation. By doing this you let PluginManager know that you run it from MSI installer, and so there is no need to run MSI uninstallation once more
You can find these and other tips and tricks, with full PluginManager.exe command line speicifications in the Plug-in Identity and Deployment White Paper in Ocean.chm (section "How to use PluginManager.exe in MSI installer").
Important information with Petrel 2013:
We have plugins that can be installed or uninstalled using MSI, created with Wix. When installing a PIP with PluginManager.exe without using the argument /installerId:<msi_installer_id> uninstalling the plugin using the Petrel physically deletes all your files, but create an inconsistency in windows uninstaller plugin. If we use the argument /installerId:<msi_installer_id> uninstalling the plugin using the Petrel occurs only logical deleting the plugin, keeping it physically in their original directory. This allows it to be installed subsequently also by Petrel. In the latter case, there is no inconsistency, because the windows uninstall the plugin and be able to delete all your files.
The problem is that uninstalling the plugin using the Petrel 2013 is not calling its MSI uninstaller. It should not be? This looks like a bug.
I'm trying to find a solution for the following issue:
I have numerous programs (lets call them slaves) that all rely on a single program (master). I need to distribute an installer for each slave. This installer needs to install the master.
I want to be able to version both pieces, so multiple msi's appear to be the right solution, chained with a bootstrapper.
My problem is if a slave installer installs the same version of the master that is already installed, the .msi will run in repair/remove mode.
This is unacceptable from a user standpoint and will just cause confusion.
Is there any way to check for a version of the currently installed fiels before trying to run the msi?
I am currently using WIX's setupbld.exe as a bootstrapper.
Any other solutions greatly appreciated (I have also tried merge modules with no success, since the versioning is useless)
Instead of using setupbld.exe (which I don't really know as I can't find any documentation) you can use msbuild's generatebootstrapper task. The wix documentation already covers how to use this task to generate a bootstrapper that installs the .NET framework. See How To: Install the .NET Framework Using a Bootstrapper. This makes use of the pre-defined bootstrapper packages.
However, in this case you will also have to author your own bootstrapper packages. One way to do this is to study the existing bootstrapper packages in C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\BootStrapper\Packages\ (or the ones in the Windows SDK) and read the documentation of the Bootstrapper Manifest XML format. The bootstrapper generator tool might also be helpful.
To determine whether the package needs to be installed, you can use one of the InstallChecks to set a property, and then check the property value in a InstallCondition under the Commands element.
If you're thinking that this is all harder than it should be — I agree, but it's what I've used so far. There are some alternatives which I have not tried yet:
the poorly named dotNetInstaller
which is actually a general purpose
bootstrapper generator.
the wix 3.5 burn bootstrapper which is not yet released. I'm not sure if it is in a usable state yet.