Is it feasible/sensible to wrap an Inno Setup installer inside an MSI for easier distribution via AD?

Question

Our installer is written with Inno Setup and we are actually quite happy with it. Yet some customers keep asking for an MSI installer which they could more easily distribute

Answer 1

although the last comment is feasible and workable, moving to MSI is the best way to handle this.

almost all large organisations stipulate MSI only, there are multitudes of reasons why.

1) first is ease of deployment 2) more important to some is application sociability 3) self healing

inno setup and other such tools not implementing Windows Installer simply cannot offer application sociability in the same ways as windows installer.

you have to understand Inno setup is software designed to deploy a single application.

Windows Installer is an entire framework to deal with sociability, user impersonation, user elevation, self healing, user profile fix up.

They two are not even remotely close in functionality, inno setup in my mind is completely and utterly way off course in terms of comparing with windows installer.

Can it create successful installers ? yes Is it easy to use ? yes Does it create good single installers ? yes Is it the best choice for enterprise ? no

The earliest tools developed by microsoft "SMS Installer" was innosetup 10 years ago. Things have changed drastically in the install world and inno setup simply hasnt kept up with the pace of that change.