Including InstallShield Prerequisites (.prq) in an Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI Project

Project:This information applies to the following project types:

Advanced UI
Suite/Advanced UI

Edition:The Advanced UI project type is available in the InstallShield. The Suite/Advanced UI project type is available in the Premier edition of InstallShield. For information about the differences between these two project types, see Advanced UI Projects vs. Suite/Advanced UI Projects.

An InstallShield prerequisite is an installation for a product or technology framework that is required by your product. You can add any of the existing InstallShield prerequisites (.prq files) to your Advanced UI and Suite/Advanced UI projects. You can also create your own InstallShield prerequisites, and add them to your Advanced UI and Suite/Advanced UI projects.

To include an InstallShield prerequisite (.prq file) in an Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI project:

1. In the View List under Organization, click Packages.
2. Right-click the Packages explorer, and then click Import Prerequisite (.prq).

Note:Importing of Windows Package Manger (WPM) prerequisite in the Suite project is not supported.

InstallShield adds the InstallShield prerequisite to the Packages explorer as an .msi package, an .msp package, or an .exe package, depending on the type of file that is configured to run for the prerequisite.

If the InstallShield prerequisite has dependencies (that is, if one or more other .prq files are specified as dependencies in the InstallShield prerequisite that you are adding to the Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI project), InstallShield automatically adds the dependency prerequisites as separate packages in the Packages explorer.

Tip:When you add InstallShield prerequisites to an Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI project, InstallShield automatically configures default values for the prerequisite package’s settings. You can change these settings as needed, just as you can change the settings for packages in your Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI project. For more information, see Configuring Settings for a Package in an Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI Project.

Note:Windows Package Manager (WPM) and App package prerequisites are not supported in Advanced UI and Suite/Advanced UI projects.

Reviewing the Detection and Evaluation Conditions of an InstallShield Prerequisite That Is Included as a Package in an Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI Project

Once you have imported an InstallShield prerequisite into an Advanced UI or Suite/Advanced UI project, review the detection and evaluation conditions of the package, and make changes as needed.

For example, if you import an InstallShield prerequisite that targets version 5.0 and all later versions of the Windows operating system, you may want to change the conditions that InstallShield configures by default when you include the prerequisite in your project; you could replace the multiple platform conditions with a single platform condition in which the OS Version condition subsetting is 5.0- (to indicate version 5.0 and later).