Merge msi and exe

Question

My deployment project creates and .msi-file and an .exe-file. Is it possible to merge these into one .exe?

Answer 1

Yes, you can create a self-extracting installer containing both MSI and the setup.exe bootstrapper file.

I think it is possible to do that with WinZip, or you can use IExpress coming with Windows. Here is a guide how to create a self-extracting executable with IExpress. You can either use the IExpress wizard or manually write a config file which you then can execute in the post-built step of your setup project, e.g. by calling

IExpress /N /Q MySetup.sed 

A sample configuration file would look like this:

[Version] Class=IEXPRESS SEDVersion=3 [Options] PackagePurpose=InstallApp ShowInstallProgramWindow=1 HideExtractAnimation=1 UseLongFileName=1 InsideCompressed=0 CAB_FixedSize=0 CAB_ResvCodeSigning=0 RebootMode=N InstallPrompt=%InstallPrompt% DisplayLicense=%DisplayLicense% FinishMessage=%FinishMessage% TargetName=%TargetName% FriendlyName=%FriendlyName% AppLaunched=%AppLaunched% PostInstallCmd=%PostInstallCmd% AdminQuietInstCmd=%AdminQuietInstCmd% UserQuietInstCmd=%UserQuietInstCmd% SourceFiles=SourceFiles [Strings] InstallPrompt= DisplayLicense= FinishMessage= TargetName=MySetup.exe FriendlyName=My cool application AppLaunched=CMD /C setup.exe PostInstallCmd= AdminQuietInstCmd= UserQuietInstCmd= FILE0="setup.exe" FILE1="MySetup.msi" [SourceFiles] SourceFiles0= [SourceFiles0] %FILE0%= %FILE1%= 

There is a little caveat however with the self-extracting installer scenarios. Due to another fix these scenarios are broken with the bootstrapper (setup.exe) created by VS2008 SP1. For a workaround see the following thread: http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winformssetup/thread/3731985c-d9cc-4403-ab7d-992a0971f686/?ffpr=0.