How to add .msi files in the C# Installer

Question

I am going to add speech recognition support to my existing C# desktop application written in C# .Net 3.5. I searched on the google and found that in order to able to run speech recognition, client system must have installed Microsoft speech Platform 11.0. The speech platform is consists of 5 different .msi files. How can I include these five .msi files in my existing installer so that they install the required speech component along with my desktop application. Please suggest. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You should say which tool you are using to build your base MSI setup. If it's Visual Studio then prerequisites are customized using the Bootstrap Manifest Generator. However it's mostly fallen into obscurity since installer projects were taken out of Visual Studio and then added back as an externsion.

You cannot install those speech MSI files from your installer class in a VS setup project. Recursive MSI installs don't work, and that's one reason why there are bootstrapper programmers that build a prerequisite installer. In all cases you'll need to know things like the ProductCode of those speech MSIs so that they can be detected if they are already installed.

In your position, and if you're using VS to build yoyur MSI file, I'd use WiX bootstrapper to mark those speech MSIs as prerequisite dependencies. If you search you'll find examples like this:

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/cb88b2/installing-prerequisites-using-wix-bootstrapper-project-and/

http://neilsleightholm.blogspot.com/2012/05/wix-burn-tipstricks.html

https://www.firegiant.com/wix/tutorial/net-and-net/bootstrapping/