Windows Installer Software
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
Hi Steven, we are using InstallShield. It does its job, but it's quite hard. We have to customize most parts of the setup, and I have written dirty hacks to get around some constraints. In the meantime I think we had better written our own installer X| Regards Thomas Finally with Sonork id: 100.10453 Thömmi
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Hi Steven, we are using InstallShield. It does its job, but it's quite hard. We have to customize most parts of the setup, and I have written dirty hacks to get around some constraints. In the meantime I think we had better written our own installer X| Regards Thomas Finally with Sonork id: 100.10453 Thömmi
Disclaimer:
Because of heavy processing requirements, we are currently using some of your unused brain capacity for backup processing. Please ignore any hallucinations, voices or unusual dreams you may experience. Please avoid concentration-intensive tasks until further notice. Thank you.Thomas Freudenberg wrote: In the meantime I think we had better written our own installer *LOL* That's exactly how I feel about InstallShield project I had to take over. You can do everything - but if you leave the mainstream features, prepare for the hard times. I only hope we are forced into an update, so I can convince my boss that we can get it cheaper & better elsewhere.
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
My experience is that InstallShield sucks the most. I think I've seen Wise recommended in previous threads. Although I haven't used it.
Todd Smith
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
Be sure to look at InnoSetup . first, it's free. second, the source is available so you can tweak it if you want. third, it does a damn fine job. -c
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
Not really a reply to your post but still OT (on topic.) This topic, of which installer to use, has come up a lot in the lounge. I trhink it would be useful for those "in the know" to write an article for CP so that people can be reffered to it when they ask this question. The article could have a breakdown of the pro's/con's of each so that anyone can choose the right one for their project. Fortunatley, for me, I do web-dev so I don't ever have to use Installer software, so my experience is limited. Just an idea :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge Martin Marvinski wrote: Unfortunatly Deep Throat isn't my cup of tea Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
We were using WISE for previous projects, but have since switched over to InstallShield Professional 6.3. We switched from WISE mainly because we had quite a few installation requirements which required us to create custom installation dialogs and required calling external custom dll functions which is a little easier to implement in InstallShield. Also, InstallShield seem to be more reliable than WISE. If you are into pain and suffering consider using the bleeding edge InstallShield Developer 7 version.
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Be sure to look at InnoSetup . first, it's free. second, the source is available so you can tweak it if you want. third, it does a damn fine job. -c
I concur with Chris here. I use InnoSetup for a small free application that is given to clients. The script was simple to put together and has been easy to maintain. Todate, there has been no client complaints and on occasion a grateful thanks for such an easy and painless installation process. I heartily recommend this installer software to anyone. Chris Meech
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Not really a reply to your post but still OT (on topic.) This topic, of which installer to use, has come up a lot in the lounge. I trhink it would be useful for those "in the know" to write an article for CP so that people can be reffered to it when they ask this question. The article could have a breakdown of the pro's/con's of each so that anyone can choose the right one for their project. Fortunatley, for me, I do web-dev so I don't ever have to use Installer software, so my experience is limited. Just an idea :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge Martin Marvinski wrote: Unfortunatly Deep Throat isn't my cup of tea Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront
Another idea for a possible article is how to create a dll in C++ which can be called by the install engine. Ideas for functions defined in the dll could be copying registry keys which is useful when upgrading an application from a previous version or detecting if a specific application is in use.
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We were using WISE for previous projects, but have since switched over to InstallShield Professional 6.3. We switched from WISE mainly because we had quite a few installation requirements which required us to create custom installation dialogs and required calling external custom dll functions which is a little easier to implement in InstallShield. Also, InstallShield seem to be more reliable than WISE. If you are into pain and suffering consider using the bleeding edge InstallShield Developer 7 version.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Microsoft's installer. It was one of the top downloads for quite some time on MSDN. I've only looked at it briefly and haven't formed an opinion yet, but I was hoping to hear at least something about it. Does it really just suck, or has no one really used it much yet?
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
OK everyone - thanks for your replies. I'm going to look into Inno Setup and Indigo Rose immediately - I actually got a reply from Indigo Rose, so I will download and try their SetupFactory 6. Next in line for consideration will be Wise, and probably never would be InstallShield. The only thing that SetupFactory won't do would be WinCE, which we've only had a couple of uses for currently. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned Microsoft's installer. It was one of the top downloads for quite some time on MSDN. I've only looked at it briefly and haven't formed an opinion yet, but I was hoping to hear at least something about it. Does it really just suck, or has no one really used it much yet?
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My experience is that InstallShield sucks the most. I think I've seen Wise recommended in previous threads. Although I haven't used it.
Todd Smith
I know some people say that, but I can't help feeling that they are either prejudiced by the price or haven't taken the time to learn the environment's capabilities properly (and boy does it take time). I've been using ISD7 for the past five months or so now, regularly, at various degrees of complication, and once you know your way around and know what does what, it's like changing a nappy. You don't particularly like it, but you know the end result will be better for it. ________________ David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk "My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group, there was less competition there" - Gandhi
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
I've been using Wise for many years and am happy with it. I upgraded to Wise InstallBuilder 8.1 last year and it is a big improvement, over what I was used to before. In particular the scrip Wizard gets the basics up and going very quickly. I did evaluate most of the well known installers back when I upgraded and in the end decided that Wise still best suited my needs. One thing it has which most of the others don't, is the ability to make conditionaly compiled versions of installation packages. ie. one with the works, another without some stuff (MSVC DLL's for example). Neville Franks, Author of ED for Windows. www.getsoft.com
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I'm surprised no one has mentioned Microsoft's installer. It was one of the top downloads for quite some time on MSDN. I've only looked at it briefly and haven't formed an opinion yet, but I was hoping to hear at least something about it. Does it really just suck, or has no one really used it much yet?
The installer put out by Microsoft is very limited. If you setup requirements are simply copy files and thats it, then you should consider it. If you need to prompt the user for input (aside from the installation folder), then it may not help you much as you cannot create custom dialogs in it. Check out www.installsite.org for a comparison of the MSI (Windows Installer) authoring products available.
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
I use InnoSetup exclusively. It does almost everything that you might need, and if you need to add some custom functionality, you can download the InnoSetup Extensions (which you should do anyway), which amongst other things, grants you the ability to use Pascal scripting to modify behavior or to respond to different actions, and create your own custom wizard pages. I would also seriously suggest downloading ISTool, which is a GUI front end to InnoSetup, and supports the Extensions. All of this is, as before mentioned, free. Jamie Nordmeyer Portland, Oregon, USA
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OK everyone - thanks for your replies. I'm going to look into Inno Setup and Indigo Rose immediately - I actually got a reply from Indigo Rose, so I will download and try their SetupFactory 6. Next in line for consideration will be Wise, and probably never would be InstallShield. The only thing that SetupFactory won't do would be WinCE, which we've only had a couple of uses for currently. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
Question: Is it a requirement for you to use a MSI (Windows Installer) based setup? If so, www.installsite.org offers a good product comparison of Wise, Installshield, and Visual Studio Installer (Microsoft's). I am in no way associated with this site, I'm just a user of it.
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Question: Is it a requirement for you to use a MSI (Windows Installer) based setup? If so, www.installsite.org offers a good product comparison of Wise, Installshield, and Visual Studio Installer (Microsoft's). I am in no way associated with this site, I'm just a user of it.
gama wrote: Question: Is it a requirement for you to use a MSI (Windows Installer) based setup? I would never dream of using anything else! The auto repair and rollback if it encounters a problem is worth its weight in gold (I've had enough of application installations dying and leaving my system in a mess :mad: ) That and of course you get to use cool tools like InstallShield Developer. Did I mention that I use InstallShield Developer? Use InstallShield Developer Now, where's that damned cheque? ________________ David Wulff http://www.davidwulff.co.uk "My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who work and those who take the credit. He told me to try to be in the first group, there was less competition there" - Gandhi :bob: uses InstallShield Developer! Why don't you?
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
A review of some of these install programs and others: http://www.onlineinc.com/articles/emedia/ellerin9710.html Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
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OK. Looking for advice, rumors, anecdotes, horror stories etc., about what the best Windows installer software is. Have looked at: InstallShield most widely known, but major bucks. Wise Solutions seem to be the 'Avis' of installers (we try harder). Indigo Rose looks like it may do the job for a reasonable price. Exemplar Software used this about 4 years ago, looks like it hasn't been updated since. We need to install applications, demo source code, device drivers and ActiveX controls for various hardware products. The targets would be Win95 OSR2, Win98, Win2K, WinXP and WinCE. We've made inquiries to the above vendors, but have either received canned or no responses so far, so I thought that I would ask the troops in the trenches. Steven J. Ackerman, Consultant ACS, Sarasota, FL http://www.acscontrol.com steve@acscontrol.com sja@gte.net
I tried InstallShield and I really disliked it. I couldn't believe that I would have to get my hands dirty with their scripts just to make some basic changes to the setup program! So I said to myself, there's gotta be an alternative out there that gives me a lot flexibility without having to learn yet another scripting language. Then I found Installer VISE. It was great: very flexible, tons of options, and no scripts. It's been a while since I've used it, but you may wanna give it a shot. Regards, Alvaro
