MSI Build Configuration

InstallShield 11 Universal

An MSI Build Configuration is added to your project in the Releases view. It creates an MSI installation that can target all Windows platforms. To target other platforms with the same Universal project, add a Product Build Configuration and configure its Distributions for each targeted platform.

This feature is designed for those installation developers who need to provide installations for their software that support Linux, Mac, and UNIX operating systems, and must also support Windows Installer technology when targeting Windows platforms. This new feature does not require you to maintain two separate installation projects: one for non-Windows and another for MSI. Instead, you create and maintain a single cross-platform project in Universal that can build traditional cross-platform, Java-based installers as well as MSI packages. You set the Product, feature, and component MSI Build Properties in the UIP project as required by the MSI installation.

An MSI Build Configuration uses the default .ism project created in the InstallShield [Windows] interface. It supports the product, features, components, files, registry changes, and Installation Types that you have established in your Universal project. If your project includes any assemblies (Premier edition only), they are ignored.

If you have any custom dialogs in your Universal project and want them included in the MSI installation, then you must also create them in the ISM project.

This capability is only available if you are developing on a Windows platform because Universal leverages components belonging to the Windows interface, which only runs on Windows machines. Attempting to create an MSI installer in a Universal project while running the Universal interface on a non-Windows machine will result in an error.

If you have already created an ISM project and want it duplicated as a Universal Installer without having to set the MSI Build Properties of the product, features, etc., you can create a Convert InstallShield Project that converts the ISM project to Universal and leverages those settings. An MSI Build Configuration is created in the UIP project for each product configuration/release that is defined in the ISM project.

For more information about MSI projects, see Basic MSI Installation Projects in the InstallShield [Windows] Help Library.

If you have more than two Installation Types in your Universal project, the SetupType dialog in the ISM file (Template File property) in InstallShield [Windows] may not display correctly because it contains only two radio buttons by default. Edit this dialog in the ISM file (in InstallShield [Windows]) to add more radio buttons so that this dialog displays correctly at run time.