Combining multiple MSI installers into one installer

Question

My application has 4 msi installers.one installed, which installs a web project, the other installs web services and two installers to install the Windows service.

I want to combine all 4 into one. We have a way to do this without using wix, installshield or any third-party products.

Answer 1

A simple approach is to add 3 of your installers as a prerequisite for the fourth. You can learn more about prerequisites here:

• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/77z6b8tz(VS.80).aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165429.aspx
• http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165429(VS.80).aspx

You can then add the bootable EXE file and the MSI files to a single archive of the self-extracting EXE file that launches the boot file when it is extracted.

If the EXE is unacceptable and you want to merge them into MSI, you will need a third-party tool to create the settings.

Answer 2

No, there is no way to combine 4 MSIs into one. Although there are several ways to build components (see "Merge Modules", but they are not so popular these days), they must be specially designed and consumed when building the MSI to which they are added.