Adding InstallShield Prerequisites, Merge Modules, and Objects to Projects

InstallShield 2013 Express Edition

Two types of redistributables—merge modules and objects—must be associated with a feature in order to be installed. You can associate a single merge module or object with as many features or subfeatures as needed.

When you add an InstallShield prerequisite to a project, it is not associated with any feature by default, and it is called a setup prerequisite, since it is run before your main installation runs. If appropriate, you can associate an InstallShield prerequisite with one more features that are currently in your project.

To add an InstallShield prerequisite, merge module, or object to a project:

1. In the View List under Specify Application Data, click Redistributables.
2. Select the check box in front of the redistributable that you want to add. If you select an object, the associated wizard opens to guide you through the customization process.
3. For a merge module or an object: In the Conditional Installation pane, select the check box for each feature that should contain this redistributable.

If you want to associate a prerequisite with a feature: In the Conditional Installation pane, select the check box for each feature that should contain this prerequisite. If you do not want to associate the prerequisite with a feature, leave the Install before feature selection check box selected. This check box is selected by default when you add an InstallShield prerequisite to a project.

Tip: The right pane in the Redistributables view shows details about the merge module, object, or InstallShield prerequisite that is selected in the list of available redistributables. Review this details pane to find out information such as which files a redistributable installs. You can hide or show the details pane by clicking the Show Details button in this view.

Note: If Needs to be downloaded is specified in the Location column for the InstallShield prerequisite that you added to your project, that prerequisite is not installed on your computer. You can download the prerequisite from the Internet to your computer if you would like to include it in your project. If you build a release without first downloading one or more required prerequisites, and if you specify that the prerequisites should be extracted from Setup.exe or copied from the source media (instead of being downloaded from the Web to the end user’s computer), one or more build errors may be generated. To eliminate the build errors, remove the prerequisite from your project, download it to your computer, or change the InstallShield prerequisites location for the release to the download option; then rebuild the release.

Obtaining InstallShield Prerequisites and Objects

Note that some of the InstallShield prerequisites and objects are not installed with InstallShield. You may need to download them. For more information, see Obtaining Updates for InstallShield.

See Also