Hello:

I'm distributing a C# Excel application. I want the PIA to be installed
by my MSI if they are not present in the user's computers.
Since the Visual Studio Setup Project doesn't support the chaining of
MSIs, I have come up with a workaround: I'm including the PIA needed in the
setup project from the PIA installed in my development machine.
Is this supported by Microsoft?
Are there any license issues that prevent this to be done?

Thanks in advance,
Ram

Hi

This depends on which PIA you are using.

For Office XP, you can look into the link below we can including the PIA in
a VS,NET setup project.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...us/dnoxpta/htm
l/odc_piaissues.asp

Distributing Solutions That Rely On the Office XP PIAs
You have several options to distribute a Visual Studio .NET solution that
relies on one or more of the Office XP PIAs:

Have the end user of your solution manually install the required Office XP
PIAs on their computer before running your solution. This option is only
recommended for technically advanced end users. See the Installing the
Office XP PIAs section above for details.
Place the required Office XP PIAs in the same directory as your solution
and distribute your solution and the Office XP PIAs as a single unit. This
option is only recommended for simple solution deployments, such as copying
solutions from one file directory folder to another across a computer
network. The main disadvantage with this option is that multiple copies of
the same Office XP PIAs may be installed on end users' computers, which
reduces these computers' available hard disk space.
Install the required Office XP PIAs on end users' computers through the use
of a Visual Studio .NET Setup project. This option is recommended for most
deployments as it automatically installs and registers the required Office
XP PIAs, as well as reduces the number of duplicate Office XP PIAs on end
users' computers.

While for Office 2003 PIA, it has no standalone package, we must install it
with office 2003 installation program, that is to say it can not be
redistribute with our setup project.
We can add a readme file to request the end-user to install it with office
2003 installation program.

Best regards,

Peter Huang
Microsoft Online Partner Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Hello Peter:

Thanks for your response!

Im using Office 2003. I found a standalone package for Office 2003 PIA
he
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/d...DisplayLang=en

The problem is that it's an MSI, theres no way to call it from my own MSI
generated with a VS.Net Setup Project.

Does your suggestion for Office XP apply to Office 2003?

Place the required Office XP PIAs in the same directory as your solution
and distribute your solution and the Office XP PIAs as a single unit. This
option is only recommended for simple solution deployments, such as copying
solutions from one file directory folder to another across a computer
network. The main disadvantage with this option is that multiple copies of
the same Office XP PIAs may be installed on end users' computers, which
reduces these computers' available hard disk space.

Can I include the needed dlls from the Office 2003 PIA from my development
computer into my Setup project?


Thanks again!
Ram



""Peter Huang" [MSFT]" wrote:

Hi

This depends on which PIA you are using.

For Office XP, you can look into the link below we can including the PIA in
a VS,NET setup project.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...us/dnoxpta/htm
l/odc_piaissues.asp

Distributing Solutions That Rely On the Office XP PIAs
You have several options to distribute a Visual Studio .NET solution that
relies on one or more of the Office XP PIAs:

Have the end user of your solution manually install the required Office XP
PIAs on their computer before running your solution. This option is only
recommended for technically advanced end users. See the Installing the
Office XP PIAs section above for details.
Place the required Office XP PIAs in the same directory as your solution
and distribute your solution and the Office XP PIAs as a single unit. This
option is only recommended for simple solution deployments, such as copying
solutions from one file directory folder to another across a computer
network. The main disadvantage with this option is that multiple copies of
the same Office XP PIAs may be installed on end users' computers, which
reduces these computers' available hard disk space.
Install the required Office XP PIAs on end users' computers through the use
of a Visual Studio .NET Setup project. This option is recommended for most
deployments as it automatically installs and registers the required Office
XP PIAs, as well as reduces the number of duplicate Office XP PIAs on end
users' computers.

While for Office 2003 PIA, it has no standalone package, we must install it
with office 2003 installation program, that is to say it can not be
redistribute with our setup project.
We can add a readme file to request the end-user to install it with office
2003 installation program.

Best regards,

Peter Huang
Microsoft Online Partner Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Hi

Thanks for your quick reply.
According to the Readme shipped with the package, we have the following
choice.
Installation
To install the Office 2003 Primary Interop Assemblies, follow one of the
following methods:
1 Double-click the O2003PIA.msi file
2 Execute "msiexec.exe /i O2003pia.msi", or
3 Wrap the O2003pia.msi in another setup package through Visual Studio or
other Windows Installer aware setup editor.

Please note that the Office 2003 Primary Interop Assemblies setup does not
support the /a or /j options for MsiExec.

For third option, I think you may try to take a look at the link below.
How To Create a Nested .msi Package
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=306439

Also we have specified queue about setup project, if you still have any
concern ,please feel free to post there, so that experienced expert will
give you more idea.
microsoft.public.platformsdk.msi
or
microsoft.public.vstudio.setup


Best regards,

Peter Huang
Microsoft Online Partner Support

Get Secure! - www.microsoft.com/security
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.