Hi.

 

I need an installer that can work for both 32-bit and 64-bit OS. Currently I
build 2 separate MSIs and bundle them together in a bootstrapper EXE. The
problem is that 90% of the files are common between the two platforms and my
installer is almost double of what it can be.

 

One solution I tried is to create a transform that converts one MSI into the
other. However it looks like a transform can't modify the Package.Platform
setting. If my main MSI is 64-bit, it won't even start on 32-bit Windows. If
I make the 32-bit MSI the main, even after the transformation it still can't
access the 64-bit OS folders like Program Files or System32. Another smaller
problem is that since MSTs can't contain resources, I have to put all my
files into the main MSI. This gives me warnings that I have files with the
same target name. It is fine though, because I have mutually-exclusive
conditions for each of the components.

 

Another solution I'm looking at is to create 2 MSI files with a shared CAB.
I can't find any instructions how to create such CAB though. If the 32-bit
and the 64-bit MSIs produce their own CABs, how do I combine them into one
file that has no duplicate resources?

 

Also ideally my bootstrapper should be able to extract one of the MSIs and
the CAB and then merge the two on the user's machine. This way the user will
get a single file to deal with. Is this possible? I've seen some scripts
that can do the merging, but I'm not sure if they require the Windows SDK to
be installed. Also I'd rather do this in C++ because my bootstrapper is in
C++.

 

So, to recap:

What is the recommended way to create one installer that supports both
platforms?

How do I create a shared CAB that contains files from multiple MSIs?

How do I merge the MSI and the CAB on the user machine?

 

Regards

Ivo

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