Summary

Synopsis

There are many cases where you have to launch a third-party installation from within your installation. This article explains how to launch a child MSI install from an InstallScript installation.

Discussion

One of the scenarios is to launch a vendor MSI installation from an InstallScript install. This article assumes that the installation supplied by the vendor is in uncompressed format, meaning you can see the MSI file on the media supplied by the vendor. Check the media supplied by the vendor to determine whether the Windows Installer engine redistributables (InstmsiA.exe - WIndows 9x and InstmsiW.exe - Windows NT, 2000, XP and 2003) are present. If the Windows Installer engine redistributables are not present, download them from Microsoft?s web site

For the sake of simplicity, we will also assume that the child MSI install and the Windows Installer redistributable files are added to the SUPPORTDIR (Support files view\Setup files tab) folder of your InstallScript setup.

Determine whether the Windows Installer engine is present on end-user?s machine

The first thing you have to do before launching the child MSI setup is to check for the presence of the Windows Installer engine on the machine. You can check for the Windows Installer engine using the following code:

#define FILE_SPEC "msiexec.exe"#define TITLE_TEXT "FindFile Example"
  STRING svResult;STRING svVersionNumber;
  function FindMSIEngine()
  begin if (FindFile (WINSYSDIR,FILE_SPEC, svResult) < 0) then MessageBox ("FindFile failed.", SEVERE); else VerGetFileVersion(WINSYSDIR^FILE_SPEC,svVersionNumber); SprintfBox (INFORMATION, TITLE_TEXT, "Found: %s in %s.", svResult, WINSYSDIR); endif;end;

Windows Installer engine is present

If the Windows Installer engine is present on the machine, launch the child MSI install using the following code:

STRING szProgram = WINSYSDIR^"msiexec.exe";STRING svPath = SUPPORTDIR^"Basic MSI.msi";STRING szParam;
  LongPathToQuote(svPath,TRUE);szParam= "/i " + svPath;LaunchAppAndWait(szProgram,szParam,WAIT);

Windows Installer engine is not present

If the Windows Installer engine is not present on the machine, launch the appropriate MSI engine redistributable file using the LaunchAppAndWait function, based on the end-user?s operating system, from SUPPORTDIR. If you are installing MSI engine 1.1, then you have to reboot the machine after the installation of the engine is done. The MSI engine 2.0 allows you to suppress the reboot.

Once the MSI engine is installed then you can launch the child install using the method described under ?Windows Installer engine is present? section.

Note: InstallShield 11.x, 10.x, DevStudio and Professional 7 users can include the MSI 2.0 engine InstallShield object to handle the installation of the Windows Installer engines.

Additional Information

For further information on command-line parameters for msiexec.exe, see the Windows Installer Help Library topic Command Line Options.

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