Software Deployment

if its an msi already, dont repackage it with wise, use an mst

Actually, as it is a suite of application, it has 8 MSIs. Any suggestion about how I can join all of them in one MSI file ?

Thank you
Rodolfo

8 MSI's - Best practice is to create a MST package for each MSI and depending on yr deployment method - set each as a dependency of the next one...diasy chaining

Hi u can create a wrapper msi which call the main setup through script.

how I can join all of them in one MSI file?Why would you need to? Any deployment system I know is more than happy to handle multiple MSIs.

I will use, nsted installation method, find out which msi is ur base msi, and according to it call other msi....thorugh main msi.


if you do not know nsted installation, then you can go for silent installation of that suit application as well, no need to capture anything....just find out silent switches and according to that, create any bat or vbs file, to call it.

I would install app and look at event log for installation order
Deploy in that order using mst's.

Cannot see the need for a wrapper unless you are sending it out on disk.

I will use, nsted installation method, find out which msi is ur base msi, and according to it call other msi....thorugh main msi

this will be bad practise to embed vendor msi's to create a nested installation

creating an mst for each of the msi's is the best option and then you can chain the msi's in the right order via any deployment tool ie citrix, sms etc

Is it?
I did not know, this.............nested installation is not a best practice? Does microsoft say that?

Does microsoft say that?
microsoft says there are drawbacks when creating nested msi's

is this scenario you already have vendors msi's the only option is mst , mst , mst , mst , etc

Yes, i have done nested installation, only thing which i found was, i could not repair, nested msi's......also you will not get it's installation log in eventvwr...

Yes, i have done nested installation, only thing which i found was, i could not repair, nested msi's......also you will not get it's installation log in eventvwr...

and the drawbacks include http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306439

So what do u say....
in future if we get such requests, for nested msi installation,
Installing these msi files through any deployment tool, will be better or calling them externally through any bat or vbs file will be good.

in future if we get such requests, for nested msi installation,

my point was if you have captured 2 legacy setups and created 2 msi's then it is different if there is a request for a nested installation. by all means you can create the nested installation.

we are talking vendors msi's here. are we not supposed to customize the vendor msi and create the mst.

so are you saying we embed the vendors msi's to create a nested installation without customizing them.

in my option which might be different to others is


.wsi >>>> .msi >>> you can create a nested installation if it is required( bear in mind the drawbacks)
.ism >>> .msi same as above

.msi(vendor) >>>>>> mst

in this case if u have 8 msi's it would be better to create transforms of each, customize them according to your requirements and create a wrapper exe which will call all the msi's wrt their mst's..

what is wrapper exe concept?
we can create wse file for this and after compiling we get exe, then can we call this wrapper exe?

try it and tell us what happens

I want to know, what is Wrapper exe concept.....i have already created exe's in which we give a call to multiple msi files.

i have already created exe's in which we give a call to multiple msi files.Then you already know what a wrapper is. :)