[wix-users] Can anyone point me to a working example of how to use EmbeddedChainer to launch a .msi from a .msi?

[Gary Henry]

Christopher,

Thank you for the quick response! My understanding is that WiX Burn creates a WiX bootstrapper executable file. We have some customers that want to use the UI and some that need the .msi to do a silent install using msiexec with options like INSTALLDIR and ADDLOCAL. Can a silent install using options like these be done with the bootstrapper executable?

I would also like to know more about the limitations of the other possibility you mentioned of launching a parent MSI in full UI mode and using a custom action from the InstallUISequence table to launch another installer out of process. Do you have an example or somewhere that describes how to do this and what the limitations are?

From: Christopher Painter <chrpai at iswix.com>
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2022 11:05 AM
To: wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org
Cc: Gary Henry <Gary.Henry at microfocus.com>
Subject: Re: Can anyone point me to a working example of how to use EmbeddedChainer to launch a .msi from a .msi?

That answer is only 99% correct.  There are two mutex

One that prevents two execute sequences machine wide
One that prevents two UI sequences in the same process

It is technically possible to launch a parent MSI in full UI mode and using a custom action from the InstallUISequence table to launch another installer out of process.  However it's use is very limited.

MSI has some chaining functionality introduced later on in its life but they are kinda sketch.  I'd recommend that you look at using WiX Burn to make a bootstrapper that chains your installers together.


________________________________
From: wix-users <wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> on behalf of Gary Henry via wix-users <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 19, 2022 10:44 AM
To: wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Cc: Gary Henry <Gary.Henry at microfocus.com>
Subject: [wix-users] Can anyone point me to a working example of how to use EmbeddedChainer to launch a .msi from a .msi?

Hi,
I want to launch a .msi from another .msi but have not found a way to do that. All I could find was a note at https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9194554/custom-wix-action-to-call-depending-msi-on-first-installation that says:
"Windows Installer doesn't allow two installations to run at the same time. Thus this approach will not work. What you need is MSI chaining. You can use the EmbeddedChainer<http://wix.sourceforge.net/manual-wix3/wix_xsd_embeddedchainer.htm> element"

If someone has a working example using EmbeddedChainer they can share that would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Gary

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