How to create a Pre-Requisite in InstallShield?

We have plenty of Pre-Requisites available in <Program Files>\InstallShield\2012\SetupPrerequisites folder and some times you may need to bundle / distrubute a thrid party msi or setup.exe along with your installer as a pre-requiste.

Here’s the way to create pre-requisites (.prq) in InstallShield for an exe or msi. 

1.)    Launch InstallShield IDE, Open Tools->Pre-requisite editor (or) Programs Shortcut -> InstallShield -> InstallShield 2012 Tools -> InstallShield Prerequisite Editor

2.)    A unique GUID is generated for each launch of the Prerequisite Editor.  Use the default one or otherwise, have a new one in the field specified under the “Properties”  tab.

3.)    Specify any condition, like registry entry or file exists, in the “Conditions” tab.

4.)    Select the files to be included under the “Files to Include”  tab. This is the exe or msi.

5.)    Under “Applications to run” tab select the file that must be launched to install the prerequisite.  This must include only the files specified in “Files to Include”.

6.)    Choose “Behavior” and “Dependency”  as needed.

For more information on this see here.

Note: The installer output should be a Setup.exe to include a Pre-Requiste (.prq).