Cannot call command.exe(SQL Server Setup.exe) while calling C# CA with parameters

Question

Developer environment: Wix 3.10, Visual Studio 2010 (with Wix Extension), Windows 7 x64

I want to create a SQL Server Instance installer (passing fixed parameters to

Answer 1

This will have to be short, I just skimmed your question. First: How are you installing these MSI files? Are you kicking them off from SCCM or some other distribution system? A couple of general pointers:

No Concurrent MSI Installs: Windows Installer does not allow concurrent msiexec.exe sessions. In other words two MSI files can not run at the same time.

• Technically it is the InstallExecuteSequence that can not run concurrenctly - the elevated part of the MSI installation - not the GUI sequence. You can launch two MSI files and get to the GUI, but the actual install can not be done concurrently.
• The effect is that you can not kick off an MSI that in turn launches any other MSI installers - or EXE files that then kick of an MSI. Guaranteed. I suspect this is the problem you are seeing - even though I am not too familiar with the SQL installer.
• There used to be a concept to launch an embedded MSI via a custom action - referred to as a nested MSI installation - or concurrent installation (MSDN info) - but this is long since deprecated and considered futile to try. If you are considering it, then I quote legendary ex-Installshield support chieftain Robert Dickau: "don't". His concise summary of years of experience! :-).
• An older explanation of the problems related to concurrent MSI installations written for system administrators. Might be a better read.

WiX Bundle: The approach to use with WiX, is to use the Burn tool - a bootstrapper, sequencer, downloader feature which is part of the WiX toolkit. It can be used to create WiX Bundles: which are wrapper EXE files with embedded MSI and EXE files (and also other deployment files) with the capability to install files in sequence in the required order. It can take a while to get used to the WiX markup and way of doing things. I don't have a lot of samples for Burn to give you at the moment, but here are a few things to start with:

• The official Burn documentation.
• https://github.com/frederiksen/Classic-WiX-Burn-Theme (Burn sample)
• WiX Toolset Burn source and samples on Github.
• http://neilsleightholm.blogspot.no/2012/05/wix-burn-tipstricks.html

Decompress SQL Setup: It could also be that you can decompress the SQL setup.exe to extract embedded MSI files and embedded EXE-setups as well (rather than running the SQL setup.exe raw from the WiX Bundle). It is often possible to eliminate a number of unnecessary pre-requisite installers if your target environment is uniform. I have doubts, however, since efforts to deal with these core-MSI installers (SQL, .NET, or any core Microsoft runtime or component) are often ill-adviced, and you should run them "as-is" as much as possible (which you are trying to do).

Other Tools: Commercial tools such as Advanced Installer, Installshield, PACE Suite and a few other tools generally have features to help with the installation of important runtimes and components such as these - in case you have the tools already available in your company. Here is my own writeup of deployment tools and MSI (tool strengths and weaknesses etc...): How to create windows installer.