Conditional installation of ActiveX components

[Mike]

I'm writing an application in VB.NET that uses various 3rd party
ActiveX components. My problem is that if I register these ActiveX
components (using COMSelfRegister) during the install and later
uninstall my application, the ActiveX components are removed -
breaking any other applications that still need them. If I don't
register the ActiveX components, and they are not already installed on
the computer, my application will not run.

The solution appears to be some sort of Custom Install step where I
determine somehow whether each component is installed, then install it
if it is not.

Does anyone have experience with a similar problem, or examples of how
to build a custom installation that can selectively install ActiveX
components?

 

[Mike]

Anyone at all?

 

[David Guyer [MS]]

The best solution is to use a Merge Module from the developer of the
components. That way, all the components have the same ComponentID to
Windows Installer, and they'll be ref-counted.

If that doesn't work, in your setup project you can do a Registry Search
for the path to the HKCR registration information. For your ActiveX
components, edit the Condition property so that it is something like
REGISTRYSEARCH1="" (it will only install if the search didn't find
anything, i.e. it isn't already installed).