Integrate advanced installer Merge Module project with Visual studio

Question

I have some merge module projects created using advanced installer. I need to integrate them with visual studio. I have done same for MSI projects and they work fine. but I don't know how to achieve continuous integration for MSM using Visual Studio.

Answer 1

Advanced Installer extension for Microsoft Visual Studio allows to create Advanced Installer Projects for Visual Studio. Each such project is a container that can include a single .AIP file.

The Visual Studio Solution can include one or more Advanced Installer Project for Visual Studio, in accordance with your needs.

Note that you need to remove the default project that is created when adding a new Installer Project to the .sln and add the existing project, the project that builds the .msm package.

edit

Indeed, you are right. It was a misunderstanding on our end.

On my machine I have several extensions installed side by side. One of these extensions also supports the build of a merge module project type.

We do not officially support this yet. The option to build other project types (e.g. Merge Module Project, Updates Configuration Project) with our VS extension will be available in a future version of Advanced Installer. I will let you know when we will add support for this.

Until then, you can use a build event as a workaround to build the Merge Module Project within the Visual Studio project.

To build the .msm project you can use a command line as described below: http://www.advancedinstaller.com/user-guide/command-line.html#build-project

The command line can be something as below:

AdvancedInstaller.com" /build "$(SolutionDir)Merge module sample.aip"