I am developing a WPF application in .NET and I create the setup for that project. My project needs additional software like Adobe Flash and Adobe Reader. I am trying to add both Setups to my project setup. my need is when the user runs my set up it will automatically install both softwares on the client system. How can I do that? Is it possible to add that setups in prerequisites? If it's possible, can you kindly tell how can I achieve my needs.
The way it works is - the setup.exe installs prerequisites and then your MSI installs your project. There are many reasons for this. Is there an actual problem or do you just believe your MSI file should be able to install prerequisites like the .NET framework, SQL Express and so on?
If you have some problem in adding them at some of the stages, you can check this article - Add prerequisites to .Net project
To add exe files in the setup you can try with creating a Bootstrapper packages. There is a good article in MSDN - Bootstrapper Package. Basically you just have to create a product manifest and a package manifest, copy them along with your distributable file to : \Program Files\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper\Packages. Visual studio will automatically pick it up.