6 replies to this topic

[rbrinda]

Hi All,

I read the Windows Installer 2.0 article in installsite and found information about how to install the MSI2.0 Runtimes with Installshield Developer 7and ISWI 2.03. My question is : Can i follow the same instructions that is given for ISWI 2.03 for ISWI 1.5 to have installshield install the MSI 2.0 runtimes?

Please help....

Thanks a lot.

[Stefan Krueger]

No, the same instructions won't work. It may be possible to install MSI 2.0 with ISWI 1.5, but the steps would be different (as far as I know it uses a different setup.exe).
On InstallSite.org you can find third party (freeware) setup.exe's for Windows Installer that you could use instead of InstallShield's to install MSI 2.0. This should work for single language setups, but not for multi language setups.

[rbrinda]

Stefan,

Thanks for your prompt reply. I checked in installsite and could not find
any freeware setup.exe's that can be used with IPWI 1.5. However i found one
that is for IPWI2.0. Can i use this for 1.5 as well? Please let me know at
your earliest convenience as this is quite urgent. Since MSI2.0 has many bug
fixes, i would really like to use that for our future products. If there is
no setup.exe at all for IPWI 1.5, then are there any other ways by which i
can use MSI2.0 with IPWI1.5?

Thanks for your help.

[Stefan Krueger]

I'm using the setup.exe from Vinga.se with success. It's not specific to ISWI, so it doesn't support multi language setups, and the setup.ini format is different. But it works to install the MSI engine and then launch your MSI.

[rbrinda]

Thanks, Stefan.  I tested the freeware setup.exe available as a download in installsite and it works fine in all the platforms.  I'll try this one from Vinga too.

Thanks again. I appreciate your timely help.

[rbrinda]

Stefan, I have one more question. I was surprised to see the IPWI2.03-setup.exe working fine with the install project created using IPWI1.5. I replaced the setup.exe in the path where i have the .msi file and also changed the setup.ini appropriately. It seems to work fine without any problems!! So now i am confused. As far as i think, setup.exe's job is to check the OS version, MSI version and install MSi engine. But why there is no single setup.exe that is common for all IPWI versions? Is there any specific logic in setup.exe that might make it incompatible to be used with IPWI 1.5? But from what i have tested, it seems to work fine for all setup projects irrespective of the IPWI version.

It will be really great if you can explain me this. Thanks for all your help and time.

[KiwiGeek]

From the documentation I've seen, the setup launcher has 3 main tasks:
1) If the Windows Installer service is not installed, install it.
2) Check the Windows Installer version and the MSI version, and make sure that the installer can read the database.  If not, either update the installer, or display an error message and quit.
3) Start the installation process.

The basic launch process hasn't changed since MSI 1.0.  Because of this, you might even find that some 1.0 launchers will run MSI 2.0 packages.