Windows Installers
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We need to create better installers for various products. We build professional products in Visual Studio using C++ and MFC, and we need to create installers for installation and upgrading, and for patches, and the installer needs to integrate well with the Fortress/Vault version control so that we can create patches for old releases. Some of our products require third party products to be installed, such as SQL Server/Express. Which are the current recommended products? InstallShield is the one I know. Any other professional grade products worth looking at? Thanks.
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We need to create better installers for various products. We build professional products in Visual Studio using C++ and MFC, and we need to create installers for installation and upgrading, and for patches, and the installer needs to integrate well with the Fortress/Vault version control so that we can create patches for old releases. Some of our products require third party products to be installed, such as SQL Server/Express. Which are the current recommended products? InstallShield is the one I know. Any other professional grade products worth looking at? Thanks.
I know InnoSetup[^]. Never usede it myself but it is apparently very good.
Cédric Moonen Software developer
Charting control [v3.0] OpenGL game tutorial in C++ -
We need to create better installers for various products. We build professional products in Visual Studio using C++ and MFC, and we need to create installers for installation and upgrading, and for patches, and the installer needs to integrate well with the Fortress/Vault version control so that we can create patches for old releases. Some of our products require third party products to be installed, such as SQL Server/Express. Which are the current recommended products? InstallShield is the one I know. Any other professional grade products worth looking at? Thanks.
Check the open source tool called WiX http://wix.sourceforge.net/index.html[^]
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We need to create better installers for various products. We build professional products in Visual Studio using C++ and MFC, and we need to create installers for installation and upgrading, and for patches, and the installer needs to integrate well with the Fortress/Vault version control so that we can create patches for old releases. Some of our products require third party products to be installed, such as SQL Server/Express. Which are the current recommended products? InstallShield is the one I know. Any other professional grade products worth looking at? Thanks.
Well I tried both the setups. The learning curve is long for them. If you want a quick solution then I will suggest InstallJammer. I like it. http://installjammer.com/[^]
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We need to create better installers for various products. We build professional products in Visual Studio using C++ and MFC, and we need to create installers for installation and upgrading, and for patches, and the installer needs to integrate well with the Fortress/Vault version control so that we can create patches for old releases. Some of our products require third party products to be installed, such as SQL Server/Express. Which are the current recommended products? InstallShield is the one I know. Any other professional grade products worth looking at? Thanks.
I strongly recommend Inno Setup[^]. It offers nice support for both simple, conventional installations (copy files, set registry values, register COM servers, etc.) and highly custom install tasks. It includes built-in scripting support, and you can easily call functions in external DLL's from script. You mentioned SQL Server Express. I have an installer that loads SQL Server Express and its prerequisites (Windows Installer 3.1, MSXML 6, and .NET 2.0), creates an initial data base, and so on. I use Microsoft's redistributables in each case, and it takes about a dozen lines of script to install the whole mess. The only disadvantage with Inno Setup, if you want to look at it that way, is that it does not create a Windows Installer MSI package. Enterprise users like MSI because it support installs pushed to client machines over a corporate network. My applications don't require this support, so it's a non-issue for me. My experience with InstallShield has been poor. Before we went with Inno Setup, we bought a copy of InstallShield, which supposedly included support for localized installers. We spent just under $1,000 for this package. It took me two weeks to get a basic installer working, and at that it didn't reliably install our device drivers. I spent a significant portion of my time manually editing the MSI tables to fix bugs in InstallShield's crap. I then started looking at localizing the installer. It turns out the package we purchased required additional 'language packs' at $500 each to support translated installs. This was the last straw, as I needed a completed, working install, translated into several languages, Like Right Now. Based on a recommendation I saw here on CP, I tried Inno Setup. I replaced my InstallShield installer with an Inno Setup-based one in a single day.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
I strongly recommend Inno Setup[^]. It offers nice support for both simple, conventional installations (copy files, set registry values, register COM servers, etc.) and highly custom install tasks. It includes built-in scripting support, and you can easily call functions in external DLL's from script. You mentioned SQL Server Express. I have an installer that loads SQL Server Express and its prerequisites (Windows Installer 3.1, MSXML 6, and .NET 2.0), creates an initial data base, and so on. I use Microsoft's redistributables in each case, and it takes about a dozen lines of script to install the whole mess. The only disadvantage with Inno Setup, if you want to look at it that way, is that it does not create a Windows Installer MSI package. Enterprise users like MSI because it support installs pushed to client machines over a corporate network. My applications don't require this support, so it's a non-issue for me. My experience with InstallShield has been poor. Before we went with Inno Setup, we bought a copy of InstallShield, which supposedly included support for localized installers. We spent just under $1,000 for this package. It took me two weeks to get a basic installer working, and at that it didn't reliably install our device drivers. I spent a significant portion of my time manually editing the MSI tables to fix bugs in InstallShield's crap. I then started looking at localizing the installer. It turns out the package we purchased required additional 'language packs' at $500 each to support translated installs. This was the last straw, as I needed a completed, working install, translated into several languages, Like Right Now. Based on a recommendation I saw here on CP, I tried Inno Setup. I replaced my InstallShield installer with an Inno Setup-based one in a single day.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
When installing Inno however, McAffee detects and removes a trojan.. making it unusable.:mad:
Then either McAfee is wrong (most likely; they're crap), or you obtained Inno Setup from a corrupted source.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^] -
We need to create better installers for various products. We build professional products in Visual Studio using C++ and MFC, and we need to create installers for installation and upgrading, and for patches, and the installer needs to integrate well with the Fortress/Vault version control so that we can create patches for old releases. Some of our products require third party products to be installed, such as SQL Server/Express. Which are the current recommended products? InstallShield is the one I know. Any other professional grade products worth looking at? Thanks.
Thanks for the replies. It looks like we are restricted to these ones, as the rest do not have required features: 1. Install Shield 2. Tarma Software Installer 3. Advanced Installer 4. Inno Setup 5. InstallAnywhere 6. InstallAware It's now a case of ticking off the required features. Integration with source code control seems to reduce the list down to Install Shield, though it remains unclear what integration means in this context.
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I strongly recommend Inno Setup[^]. It offers nice support for both simple, conventional installations (copy files, set registry values, register COM servers, etc.) and highly custom install tasks. It includes built-in scripting support, and you can easily call functions in external DLL's from script. You mentioned SQL Server Express. I have an installer that loads SQL Server Express and its prerequisites (Windows Installer 3.1, MSXML 6, and .NET 2.0), creates an initial data base, and so on. I use Microsoft's redistributables in each case, and it takes about a dozen lines of script to install the whole mess. The only disadvantage with Inno Setup, if you want to look at it that way, is that it does not create a Windows Installer MSI package. Enterprise users like MSI because it support installs pushed to client machines over a corporate network. My applications don't require this support, so it's a non-issue for me. My experience with InstallShield has been poor. Before we went with Inno Setup, we bought a copy of InstallShield, which supposedly included support for localized installers. We spent just under $1,000 for this package. It took me two weeks to get a basic installer working, and at that it didn't reliably install our device drivers. I spent a significant portion of my time manually editing the MSI tables to fix bugs in InstallShield's crap. I then started looking at localizing the installer. It turns out the package we purchased required additional 'language packs' at $500 each to support translated installs. This was the last straw, as I needed a completed, working install, translated into several languages, Like Right Now. Based on a recommendation I saw here on CP, I tried Inno Setup. I replaced my InstallShield installer with an Inno Setup-based one in a single day.
Software Zen:
delete this;
Fold With Us![^]Thanks for the informative post. We may need to run SQL Express scripts, and we will need to force the user to configure some control panel applets, then reboot the system. I'll see if Inno Setup can handle these tasks.
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We need to create better installers for various products. We build professional products in Visual Studio using C++ and MFC, and we need to create installers for installation and upgrading, and for patches, and the installer needs to integrate well with the Fortress/Vault version control so that we can create patches for old releases. Some of our products require third party products to be installed, such as SQL Server/Express. Which are the current recommended products? InstallShield is the one I know. Any other professional grade products worth looking at? Thanks.
In case anyone is interested, we have pretty much reached a conclusion after evaluating numerous installers. My brief impressions follow: Inno Setup: Restricted features. Tarma Installer: Unable to create merge modules. Nice interface, and cheap. Install Shield: Feature rich but expensive. WiX: Complex, and not easy to learn, but very powerful and flexible. And free. InstallAware: Claims to be powerful, but the unprofessional feel scared us away, and it looks to be developed by one person who engages in online slanging matches with critics. It appears to b a copy of Install Shield by an ex-IS employee. There are other products, but they all lacked essential features such as custom dialogs, or creation of merge modules. I am fairly sure we will go with WiX. Commercial install products such as Tarma and InstallShield are easier to use for simple projects, but anything more complex is no easier than WiX.