MSI merge module from a full MSI package

Can I reliably create a merge module 开发者_Go百科from a regular MSI package like MySQL to merge it with my own installation? WiX has appropriate tools for that, but what pitfalls should I expect from such translation? What are alternatives for installing other MSI packages from my own package?

You could create a bootstrapper application. The application would install your installation package and then the 3rd party application(s).

If you have InstallShield, a popular way to do this is to create an InstallScript-based bootstrapper which calls the MSI files.

The answer is "No". Merge Modules do not support all of the tables in MSI files. A perfect translation from Merge Module to MSI will not be possible (except maybe in carefully contrived situations :).

The answer William gave about using a bootstrapper/chainer instead is the correct way to handle this situation.

One of the pitfalls of trying to take an MSI and create a MSM out of it is that MSMs don't have Error tables, so any error strings that you expect to reference from your MSI custom actions won't exist.