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Adding Merge Modules to Your Setup

Merge modules are another method of packaging a component for redistribution. The beauty of merge modules is that they're independent installation components that contain all the necessary logic to successfully install, but they can't be installed on their own. They must be part of an MSI package. Like the setup project you created earlier, you can create a merge module project with resources, dependencies, launch conditions, and custom actions. Merge modules are very useful for pre-packaging components that must be shared across multiple resources on a computer, or just as a mechanism of breaking apart a large installation.

There's a Merge Module project template that you can use to create your own merge modules, ...