Incorporating a Calling Card into SETUP.EXE

Question

I've created a Calling Card that I'm happy with.  I've saved the MSI, but what I'd like to do is wrap the Calling Card into my next InstallShield build, then distribute it with the next product update.   Does anyone have any experience or advice to offer about this?

Paul · Accepted Answer

this should be fairly simple.  your installshield should do a check to make sure the system already has Windows Installer 3.1 installed (most do, but it's good to be safe).

then, you just need to kick off "msiexec /qn /i callingcardname.msi" to silently install the calling card along with your app.  add "RUN=0" to suppress the CC from running after the install completes.

another note on good practice;  it would be good practice that every time you issue an update to your software, you check to make sure we haven't released a new core software update for the calling card, so that you're not deploying old software.  yes it does auto-update, but there's no need for it if you deploy current software.