I have a list of executables, which are installers to specific windows programs. Is it possible for me to make an installer, which bundles all these installers together in-order that the end user can install all the programs in one go, rather than individually installing the programs?
Furthermore, the programs I am referring to are open source, and I can access their source code on GitHub. In case bundling the installers is not possible, any alternative method is welcome!
If these are disparate and random setups that don't really belong together as a single product, you can install them in sequence even using a regular batch file - obviously. Or a normal software delivery system such as SCCM if it is for corporate deployment and use.
A central task with such sequenced approaches is to find reliable ways to run the setups silently (or to capture them and convert to MSI files) - and this can be a real challenge. If this is what you are doing - essentially just distributing a bunch of unrelated setups to a PC, then maybe have a look at these answers:
If you need to bundle several pre-requisites with your software for delivery to end users, then market leaders WiX (free and open source), Installshield and Advanced Installer all have features for this. The commercial tools (the two latter ones) support views in the tool that will bundle standard pre-requisites in your setup.exe launcher automatically - for example the .NET Framework (which as a standard runtime these days should be downloaded via Windows Update instead of bloating your setup - in my opinion).
Advanced Installer allows you to define your own files as pre- or post installation steps to include with your final setup.exe. Check the feature documentation. And the list of suggested learning material. Prerequisites Page.
WiX provides the Burn tool to make installation bundles which can consist of MSI files, EXE files and MSP (patch) files (and whatever other files I am not aware of). It can be a bit involved to make these bundles, but it is free. You get a wrapper setup.exe file that then installs all the bundled elements. Here is a sample from the documentation: How To: Install the .NET Framework Using Burn.
Installshield (in the more expensive editions) provides a feature called Installshield Suite Projects or Advanced UI Projects where you can sequence EXE files, MSI files, AppX files and other files to run in sequence. You can implement this in full GUI mode. Here is a screenshot. Make sure to check what edition of Installshield you have, in case you can't find this feature. It might not be included in your edition. For regular setup.exe builds in normal projects there is an extensive library of normal and commonly used pre-requisites for MSI setups.
Some people recommend the dotNetInstaller Setup Bootstrapper. I have never used it for anything real. I tried it once and found it a little weird to use. I can neither recommend it, nor say anything specific about it. No intel worth anything. Perhaps give it a try?
Similar Answers: