Run the .Net installer from custom action within Wix Installer?

Question

I currently have a wix installer which produces a single MSI. As part of this I check whether or not the correct version of the .Net runtime is installed on the machine. If not it currently aborts the installation and prompts the user to install it. I initially tried using a different method as per this:

https://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/howtos/redistributables_and_install_checks/install_dotnet.html

But this produces an exe and I need it to remain as a single MSI.

Would it be possible to instead have a custom action that runs the .Net offline installer and install it then continue with the MSI installation?

Answer 1

Sorry, this isn't possible. MSI has a mutex that prevents two MSIs from running at the same time. (There is a slight exception to this rule but it rules out any hope of having a proper silent installation.)

You can use WiX Burn to create a setup.exe that installs .NET and then your MSI.

Or your application could switch to .NET Core and bundle it's own .NET inside the MSI without installing a system wide instance.