Creating Windows Installer Project in Visual Studio

Question

I've been struggling with Visual Studio to create a windows installer msi.

This is what I was hoping to create in the msi: Installer opens and first page has a couple fields where you can enter various config locations, including being able to browse, and also some drop downs with various config setups.

Click Next or Finish or whatever and custom C# code I have written gets executed depending on the choices chosen by the user.

When looking at the Visual Studio Installer Project, I can add a dialog, but they are all predefined for me. I was hoping for something like when you create a Windows Forms Application.

Is this not possible? Is the windows installer project just that inflexible? What are my other options in Visual Studio (note I don't want to use another program that may be out there)?

Answer 1

I strongly suggest you to take a look into WIX.

It is more complex than VS install projects but it is much more flexible also

Answer 2

The Installer class gives you a way to take get full control of what happens during installation for a VS installation project. However, you would have to use a modal dialog to collect the information you're describing, so the user experiecne would not be as smooth as an integrated wizard page.