Hello,
I'm wondering if there is a way to install *only* Prerequisites, and nothing else.
Some background: We're making a training CD, which contains a lot of large video files. Prerequisites for using this CD are Microsoft Silverlight and Adobe Reader. The user has the option of installing all of the material to the local PC, which runs the AI installer and thus the prerequisites check. The user *also* has the option of running the material directly from the CD; however, we still need to make sure the user has the necessary prerequisites.
Since the AI bootstrapper does such a good job of detecting and installing prerequisites, I'd like to continue to take advantage of that. Of course, I'd only want to show the Prerequisites portion of the install process; going any further would be confusing to the users. And I definitely don't want any changes made to the user's system (i.e. registry keys, Add/Remove Program entries, etc) other than installing the prereq packages.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Chris
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Re: Install prerequisites only
Hi Chris,
Currently this is not supported by Advanced Installer. However, we have this improvement on our TODO list and it will be available in a future version. Until then, you can try creating a dummy installation package which has the prerequisites you need. The package can contain a single registry value which has a false condition in the Organization page (so it's not installed). You can also use the "Limit to basic user interface (simple progress and error handling)" option in the "Install Parameters" page to make the package install silent.
This way, after the prerequisite installation a progress bar will be shown for a short time (the package installation). If nothing is installed (because of the false condition), Windows will not see the package as installed.
Regards,
Cosmin
Currently this is not supported by Advanced Installer. However, we have this improvement on our TODO list and it will be available in a future version. Until then, you can try creating a dummy installation package which has the prerequisites you need. The package can contain a single registry value which has a false condition in the Organization page (so it's not installed). You can also use the "Limit to basic user interface (simple progress and error handling)" option in the "Install Parameters" page to make the package install silent.
This way, after the prerequisite installation a progress bar will be shown for a short time (the package installation). If nothing is installed (because of the false condition), Windows will not see the package as installed.
Regards,
Cosmin
Re: Install prerequisites only
Thanks, Cosmin -- this turned out to work pretty well. I will look forward to a proper implementation, which will speed up the total install process a bit.