I have the following scenario.

I am trying to install a 3rd party prerequisite that has multiple MSIs and one bootstrapper. I am using VS 2005 Beta 2 with ClickOnce to install this component. Since there are multiple files included in the 3^rd party tool installation, ClickOnce can't just download the 3 party bootstrapper but also needs to download all the 3rd party MSIs that bootstrapper is using.

One solution might be combining MSIs and bootstrapper into a single exe may be using VS Setup project and creating a custom action in that project to start running the original bootstrapper. Or I know there are tools for combining multiple MSIs into single exe which is especially useful in distributing installation files over web.

I would like to learn what is the most efficient way of doing this? Any help is greatly appreciated....

Thanks,

You can use the "Additional Files" property of the bootstrapper packages to include files that are not called by the Visual Studio (Microsoft Generic) bootstrapper.

 

Bootstrapper Manifest Generator makes this easy, just look for the Additional Files tab: http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=ddb4f08c-7d7c-4f44-a009-ea19fc812545

 

 

You can use the "Additional Files" property of the bootstrapper packages to include files that are not called by the Visual Studio (Microsoft Generic) bootstrapper.

 

Bootstrapper Manifest Generator makes this easy, just look for the Additional Files tab: http://www.gotdotnet.com/workspaces/workspace.aspx?id=ddb4f08c-7d7c-4f44-a009-ea19fc812545

 

 

I tried the method you offered. I have a setup.exe file(bootstraper) and a single .msi file and add the setup.exe as the package file and add .msi as the additional file and used the tool you offered. (BTW it is a great tool thanks for providing it to the community.)

Anyway the problem I had, once I publish the files with ClickOnce it copies the setup.exe and .msi files and once I click on the install button at publish.htm, it first downloads the setup.exe and opens up the license aggreement and then downloads the setup.exe again and do the same things. It is like going into a loop and never executes msi package. Once you cancel the licence aggreements you have as many applications as you the number of licence aggreement you aggreed.

The behaviour is really weird. I checked the log files but they didn't specify the problem either. So I eliminate the setup.exe and use the .msi as the package file.
That solved my problem but I didn't understand the behaviour of ClickOnce on using a bootstrapper with a even single msi.

Thanks for the help tho.

Murat

I'm not sure I fully understand how you got into that state. It sounds like you tried to wrap a few MSI's with a bootstrapper, and then create another (like a parent) bootstrapper that runs the other bootstrapper. 

If that's the case, I don't think we've ever tested that, and we never intended to nest bootstrappers together. So, your solution of just adding the .MSI's to the topmost bootstrapper is the right one. It kinda sounds like somehow you got the package file to point to the main/parent bootstrapper and it kept reloading itself.

If you'd like me to take a closer look, I would be interested in seeing the directory layout of the published files, as well as your custom package files... so I could try to reproduce it.