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My installer has a prerequisite that is only required on Vista. My Install Condition specifies Vista SP2, and "Continue with main installation even if the prerequisite is not installed" is not checked.
When building my installer with AI 13.4, this prerequisite is correctly skipped on Windows 8.1 and my application installs normally.
When building my installer with AI 13.5, my install is aborted on Windows 8.1 because "a prerequisite failed". I believe it's because the "Continue with main installation..." option is not set, and the installation aborts because the prerequisite was not installed, which it should've been skipped altogether. If I check the "Continue with main installation..." box, then my installer works on Windows 8.1

Is this change in behavior by design, or is it a bug in AI?

Hi,

I tested the scenario, but I couldn't reproduce the problem. Can you reproduce the problem on multiple clean machines? If so, can you please send me your AIP (project file) and a sample package to support at advancedinstaller dot com, so I can investigate them and try to find the problem?

Best regards,
Eusebiu

I tried to reproduce the issue by creating a sample project from scratch, but was unable to do so. However, I can still reproduce the problem with a simplified version of my application installer (see attached). There are 3 prerequisites:

1. Vista Platform Update (x86) - This is required on Vista for certain multimedia functions to work. Therefore, the "Continue with main installation if the prerequisite is not installed" box is not checked. Under the Install Conditions, the Supported OS is set to Vista SP2 only, so I would expect this prerequisite to be ignored for any OS other than Vista SP2.

2. .NET Framework 4.6.2 - Our application requires at least .NET 4.5.2, but we prefer to install 4.6.2 if possible to take advantage of some of the bugfixes in the framework. However, if 4.6.2 fails to install, it should not block our application if .NET 4.5.2 or higher is installed. Therefore, the "Continue with main installation..." box is checked. The .NET installer return code is also saved in a property, and displayed in a message box during the main install.

3. Visual C++ 2010 SP1 - Needed for some features, but not required. Also set to "Continue with main installation".


My problem can be reproduced on Windows 8.1 without KB2919355 (this update is required to install .NET 4.6.2 on Windows 8.1). In this case, the .NET 4.6.2 install fails with error 5100 (system does not meet requirements), and my installer should display this error code in a message box.

If I build the installer with AI 13.4, this works as described. However, if I build the installer with AI 13.5, the installer aborts after the .NET install fails, does not display my message box, and shows an error message that a prerequiste had an error. If I change the Vista Platform Update to "Continue with main installation..." then the 13.5 build works fine.

Please let me know if you need any other information to reproduce this problem.

Hi,

Thank you for the sample project. I tested it and, indeed, it fails if the ".NET 4.6.2" prerequisite fails to install.

This seems to be an Advanced Installer issue. A fix will be available in a future version of Advanced Installer, thank you for bringing it to our attention.

Can you move the "Vista Platform Update (x86)" prerequisite after the ".NET 4.6.2" prerequisite in your project and see if it fixes the problem?

Best regards,
Eusebiu

Yes, moving the Vista Platform Update prerequisite after the .NET 4.6.2 prerequisite appears to fix the issue.

It also seems to work if I move NET 4.6.2 to a Feature-based prerequisite, while keeping the Vista Platform Update as a Pre-install prerequisite.

HI,

I'm glad that moving the "Vista Platform Update" prerequisite after the ".NET 4.6.2" prerequisite works.

However, please keep in mind that is is not recommended to move ".NET 4.6.2 " as a feature-based prerequisite. For more details please read the "Why does .NET Framework fails as feature-based prerequisite" FAQ.

Best regards,
Eusebiu

Thanks for the guidance. I wasn't actually planning to do this, I just wanted to see if it made a difference in this case. I have another feature-based prerequisite in my actual installer, and I wanted to see if I would run into any issues if it failed. This was just a quicker test to do.

You're welcome.

Just let us know anytime you need help.

Best regards,
Eusebiu