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visual-studio-2012setup-project

Visual Studio 2013 Setup Installer

I am on Visual Studio 2013 and have downloaded the extension for Visual Studio Installer (Setup project, Setup Wizard etc).

I am using "Setup project" to create an installer for my application (which is a .NET application) and I am able to do this just fine.

But the part where I am stuck is, I want to include a 3rd party MSI installer file in this Setup project itself such that

  1. During installation, it will first run this 3rd party MSI installer to install their files on the client's machine
  2. After this, it will install my application on the client

Is there a way to accomplish this using "Setup project" in Visual Studio 2013? Much appreciated.

Solution

  • There are a couple of ways, neither of them particularly straightforward. The way that VS supplies is a bit obsolete, it's the Bootstrap Manifest Generator, and it's not well documented as to how to create the requirements data file where you say you want that MSI installed.

    The other thing that people do is use the WiX Burn tool, the bootstrapper. You can create an Xml file that says you want to install that MSI nd then yours.

    http://wix.tramontana.co.hu/node/76