Wix: installing and configuring MSI packages from another MSI

I'm building a Wix project which install an application which requires MySql server.

Actually I bring the mysql-essential-xxx.msi package inside my Wix project, and I'm planning to execute msiexec using a custom action in order to install the MySql server on the machine. Successive custom action shall configure MySql server using the MySql client tools (mysqladmin to set root user password, mysql-nt to install MySql as service...)., and setup the application database (mysqlimport).

Sadly (and I knew it) there can be only a MSI installation at time, and the msiexec execution fails (gracefully, because it ask me for terminate the current installation!).

How can I workaround this? Is it possible to merge two different MSI packages into a single one?

What you need is called a bootstrapper. One of the popular ones is dotNetInstaller. WiX v3.6 (too early for production) has its own called Burn.

Alternatively, if the software you need is available as a merge module, you can include it into your package to install altogether.

Hope this helps.

As pointed out by Yan you need a bootstrapper. Another one (besides dotNetInstaller and Burn) that may be of interest is SharpSetup.

Disclaimer: I'm the author of SharpSetup.