Alternatives to WiX Burn Bootstrapper? (Can the InstallShield LE bootstrapper be used?)

Question

Background information:

We used to have a Visual Studio 2010 based installer project, but our install situation got a lot more complicated, and with the projects going away anyway in 2012, we figured we'd start learning WiX / InstallShield LE.

The Problem:

InstallShield LE seems far too limited in the MSI files it creates to fit our needs -- (example, if you check the Office 2007 prerequisite, even though the error says you need "Office 2007 or later" it will fail if you have Office 2010 installed instead -- you can check one or the other, but you can't create an OR condition -- there's a lot more that's just the tip of the iceberg). -- The bootstrapper it creates, on the other hand, is super awesome!

WiX, on the other hand, worked great for making our MSI, but the Burn Bootstrapper has been just one headache after another -- we finally got it working -- but now on our clients' boxes, it's not only failing to elevate when it launches the MSI file, but it's getting detected as a virus by Symantec SONAR and the install is being blocked anyway! (This doesn't happen with InstallShield LE, and code signing certificates are too cost prohibitive for this project.) Honestly, I'd love to just NOT use the Burn Bootstrapper.

The Question:

What alternatives to the WiX Burn Bootstrapper are there? Could the InstallShield LE one be used? What about NSIS? (Does it integrate with Visual Studio 2010/Visual Studio 2012 at all?) -- I'm hoping to do web installs of our prerequisites to keep the installer file size down -- and yes, I have to maintain the .MSI as well (otherwise, I would just switch to full-on NSIS at this point).

Resolution:

While I couldn't make Christopher Painter's solution work, I marked it as the answer because I believe it is the best approach suggested. I went with a pretty evil little hack of a solution, but if you can make Christopher's approach work, I think that's the way to go. If you can't, maybe my hack will get you unstuck.

Answer 1

For around $2K you could upgrade to InstallShield Professional. However, if you are mostly happy with ISLE and can live with only having 1 feature and no customizations of the UI, I can solve the problem regarding Launch Conditions for you.

See my blog article:

Augmenting InstallShield using Windows Installer XML - Certificates

The concept is you author a WiX merge module that searches for the two office versions and schedule an Error custom action (MSI Type 19) that uses the two searches in a logical or condition. Add that to your ISLE project and you've just "blended" the two technologies.

Professional also gives you the PRQ (XML prereq file) editor. Then again throwing the 30 day eval on a VM can get you the same result.

Here is the WXS side of it:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Wix xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/wix/2006/wi">
    <Module Id="ISWIX.REQUIRE.MSOFFICE20102013" Language="1033" Version="1.0.0.0">
        <Package Id="10ed24f2-6c07-4066-9f39-ba9f66c2667b" Manufacturer="ISWIX, LLC" InstallerVersion="200" />
        <Directory Id="TARGETDIR" Name="SourceDir">
            <Directory Id="MergeRedirectFolder"/>
        </Directory>
        <Property Id="OFFICE2010FOUND">
            <RegistrySearch Id="findOffice2010" Root="HKLM" Key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\InstallRoot" Name="Path" Type="raw" />
        </Property>
        <Property Id="OFFICE2010X64FOUND">
            <RegistrySearch Id="findOffice2010X64" Root="HKLM" Key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\InstallRoot" Name="Path" Type="raw" Win64="yes" />
        </Property>
        <Property Id="OFFICE2013FOUND">
            <RegistrySearch Id="findOffice2013" Root="HKLM" Key="SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\ProductVersion" Name="LastProduct" Type="raw" />
        </Property>
        <CustomAction Id="ErrorNoOffice20102013" Error="[ProductName] setup requires Microsoft Office 2010 or 2013." />
        <InstallUISequence>
            <Custom Action="ErrorNoOffice20102013" After="AppSearch">Not OFFICE2010FOUND and Not OFFICE2010X64FOUND and Not OFFICE2013FOUND and Not Installed</Custom>
        </InstallUISequence>
        <InstallExecuteSequence>
            <Custom Action="ErrorNoOffice20102013" After="AppSearch">Not OFFICE2010FOUND and Not OFFICE2010X64FOUND and Not OFFICE2013FOUND and Not Installed</Custom>
        </InstallExecuteSequence>
    </Module>
</Wix>

Answer 2

I'd like to get all the issues you raised about Burn fixed. If you could file bugs on the issues, that would be very helpful.

In the meantime, if you're using WiX toolset v3.5+ you might look at setupbld.exe. That tool can create a tiny pre-req installer that launches a pre-req and then a single MSI.

Note: our goal in the WiX toolset is to ultimately subsume what that tool does with Burn so bug reports where Burn does not work are much appreciated.

Answer 3

In the end Install Shield LE ended up being too much of a headache for me, what I ended up doing was creating an old school 2010 dummy .vdproj based setup project with the correct prerequisites (Windows Installer 3.1, .NET 4.0, and VSTO 2010).

I built it once, and stole the setup.exe (I made sure other things like the upgrade code, etc. matched my current WiX based .msi file -- and the that .msi it generates was the same name I wanted to use, etc).

I package that setup.exe up with my WiX based .msi file and everything works great -- it's definitely a huge hack -- but it's the only solution I could find that both works out of the box(-ish), and does not set off Symantec SONAR anti-virus.

I do not build the .vdproj every time (I've only built it once, I deleted the .msi file, and harvested the setup.exe), so there is no future dependency on Visual Studio 2010 going this route.

For a less hacky approach, see @Christopher Painter's answer -- if you can make his approach work for you, I recommend his approach over mine.

Answer 4

NSIS can be integrated with Visual Studio (2005/2008/2010 and 2012) by an addon called Visual & Installer. Inno Setup is supported too. If you are looking for simple and cheap solution go for this (both NSIS and Inno Setup are freeware systems with huge community around.)

I don't have any experience with WiX, but NSIS and Inno Setup cannot create MSI files(s), only EXE file(s).