How to exclude dependencies in setup project?

Question

I have a VS2008 Setup project, which installs stuff into the same folder as another setup project (different application), because many of the DLLs are shared. The primary output of the project in question is added to the installer, and I have changed the installer dependencies so that the unwanted DLLs (the duplicates) are set to Exclude. The problem I have is that when the solution is saved and reloaded, the dependencies lose their excluded status, setting me back to square one.

Is there a better way of controlling which dependencies are packeged up with the installer?

Answer 1

In the end I added a new class library project to the solution which contains a service installer class, and overrode the base methods Install(), Commit(), Rollback() & Uninstall() to do what I want directly, calling in each the corresponding base method at the appropriate point. Then I simply added the project output to each of the custom actions of my setup project.

Works very neatly and gives me complete freedom to do whatever I want before or after each 'native' custom action.