Best Windows Installation file Creator? [closed]

Answer 1

Yes, two ideas:

• If you're looking for a way to statically put files, registry keys, start menu shortcuts, et cetera on your customer's systems, you should be looking for an installer solution. Many of these exist, and choosing the best one mostly comes down to features and pricing. I happen to like Caphyon's Advanced Installer, and it does have a freeware version that looks like it might meet your needs, except for the ability to run executables at scheduled times (which would require the Windows Task Scheduler support only found in the Enterprise edition, which is in the ultra-expensive price range, comparable to InstallShield...)

• If controlling the flow of events on your customer's systems is more important than getting the executables on the system, you may want to look into Automise, which is basically an ultra-friendly UI for creating scripts, which makes things like scheduling tasks quite easy.

Anyway, you can download trial editions of both pieces of software, to see which one (or possibly both) will allow you to do what you want in the easiest way, or at least give you some ideas on how to best serve your customers. It may turn out that simply adding a new, 'supervisor' executable to take care of registry keys, scheduling, etc. could solve the problem without any third-party add-ons...

Answer 2

If you don't have any specific requirements apart from being able to install a few executables, then basically anyone will do. I'd recommend NSIS, not because it is particularly easy to work with (it has a cumbersome assembly-like language which isn't to practical to do more complex things in), but because it is free, has a large and active community, and it generates fast installers with very low overhead. As an extra bonus, you can run the compiler (i.e. the tool which generates the installer) on Linux.

Edit: ...and whatever you do, do NOT use InstallShield.

Answer 3

WixEdit is an open source (install shield like) authoring tool that uses the Wix Runtime from Microsoft.

Wix Tutorials

Answer 4

I heart wix, MSFT's open source, declarative (XML) based toolkit for building MSIs.

It's ace.

If you want to install binaries, add reg keys and even run "custom actions" (have your own code execure during install) you should have a look at it. Then you'll have a one-click (msi) solution. Good eh?

Answer 5

I've always had a good experience with NSIS

• It's open source
• It has a big community (and hence lots of plugins)
• For simple things, its script-based approach is nice and easy
• It's lightweight and fast

On the downside, if you want to do something more sophisticated, you need to use something that looks a bit like assembly language - very odd, and not particularly pleasant. Thanks for the comments about that - I'd forgotten all about it!