Wix: Running a external InstallShield installer fails with exit code -3 while running the command outside of Wix works

Question

Together with our application I need to install Gupta Team Developer Deploy files. This is an InstallShield Exe that can be run silently by the command "Deploy60.exe /s /f1"c:\temp\silentinstall.iss" where the file provided has been generated by running the setup earlier. Running this command from the command prompt works just fine.

So I try to run this from within Wix using a Custom Action like this:

<CustomAction Id="RunCenturaDeploy"                   
    Directory="TDREDIST"
    ExeCommand="[TDREDIST]deploy60.exe /s /SMS /f1[TDREDIST]silent.ini" 
    Execute="deferred"
    Impersonate="no"
    Return="asyncWait"/>

<InstallExecuteSequence>
    <Custom Action="RunCenturaDeploy" Before="InstallFinalize" />
</InstallExecuteSequence>

But when I run this from within Wix it does not work and the Custom Action returns -3 (the MSI log file says this): CustomAction RunCenturaDeploy returned actual error code -3 (note this may not be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox) Action ended 16:07:33: InstallFinalize. Return value 3. Action ended 16:07:33: INSTALL. Return value 3.

I can see that the command starts to run since this includes installing Visual C++ runtime that gets installed, and also the InstallShield icon shows that the process is running. I have thought about permission problems, but the Impersonate="no" should fix that. Also I am running the installer silent from an elevated command prompt.

Anyone had similar issues?

Shaun Wilde Shaun Wilde · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-04T09:28:24

It is not possible to run another installer (i.e. the installshield installer) when an installer is already running (i.e. your installer).

You should look into making a bootstrap project (wix) where you install each installer in turn.

Wix: Running a external InstallShield installer fails with exit code -3 while running the command outside of Wix works

1 Answers