Hello Jan,
First of all, I apologize for the delayed reply.
Thank you for an awesome install product!
Thank you for your feedback.
My feature based prerequisite (SQL Server Express 2017) installs fine when "Install prerequisite based on condition" is selected. When I switch to use "Always install prerequisite" AI does not even try to install the prereq. It seems to be a bug. Would be nice if this feature worked.
I am not sure why this happens. Could you please send me a copy of your .AIP file and also a download link for the setup build using the .AIP by e-mail at
support at advancedinstaller dot com so I can test this on our end (you can simply strip down your project to a basic size [for example, you can leave only the prerequisite, if that is enough to reproduce this]).
Adding to this question. What I want to achieve is installing SQL Server Express 2017 (as a prerequisite) each time the user selects to create a new instance of the SQL Server in the installer dialog. I don't want the installer to evaluate a registry key to check if SQL Server Express 2017 is installed or not since a user can have many instances of the SQL Server installed at the same time, and let my installer properties decide if the prerequisite should be installed or not. How can I accomplish this now that this "Always install prerequisite" doesn't seem to work?
This should normally be accomplished by using the "Always install prerequisite" plus a condition in the "Organization" page on the feature that is assigned to your prerequisite (as you may already know, a "Feature-Based" prerequisite creates a new feature in the "Organization" page).
I think my approach is incorrect. Instead of trying to install SQL Server 2017 Express as a prerequisite, maybe I should install it using a custom action each time the user selects to create a new instance from the installer dialogs (since it should be possible to install more than one time). At what stage in the installation sequence would I execute this custom action? This custom action should be triggered by an install parameter from my dialogs.
Yes, it is possible to use a custom action approach as well. The custom action should be added
without sequence in the "Custom Actions" page (simply press the "Add custom action without sequence" button).
I ended up changing it to be a custom action (LaunchFileFromProperty) that is triggered by the Install button, instead of being a pure prerequisite. It worked out in the end.
I am glad you sorted things out, Jan. It would still be useful if you could help me further investigate this by sending me a copy of the project and a download link for the setup (as I have earlier mentioned, if only the prerequisite is enough to reproduce this, you can simply remove all the files from the project).
All the best,
Catalin
