Validating an Installation Package or Merge Module

There are two ways to validate an installation package or a merge module from within InstallShield:

You can configure InstallShield to validate the installation package or merge module every time that you build a release. This is disabled by default. For more information, see Specifying Whether Validation Should Be Performed at Build Time.

If you perform validation at build time, you can specify multiple validation suites.

You can run validation on demand for a built release. To learn how, see Validating an Installation Package or Merge Module on Demand.

If you perform validation on demand, you can specify only one validation suite at a time.

As an alternative, you can validate the installation package or merge module after you build it from the command line by using ISCmdBld.exe. For more information, see ISCmdBld.exe.

The only way to validate a package for an MSI Database project or an MSM Database project is to perform validation on demand.

If you want to see validation warnings that apply to your installation or merge module, you must perform validation on demand; this type of validation message is not available if you perform validation at build time. InstallShield reports the other types of validation messages—errors and failures—during both validation methods. To learn more about the different types of validation messages, see Viewing Validation Results.