Synopsis :
There are a lot of setup applications available, but I found that their code may add more than 250KB to the total size of the final setup application, and because most of my applications are not much bigger than 100KB, I decided to write my own installation builder.
The application does not have all the features available in commercial setup builders, but it's a good start (I think...). Maybe in the future I will extend the installation builder with more features, but for now I found it good enough for my needs. If you have any suggestions or improvements please let me know!
The application is made up out of two parts:
Installation Builder -> Used to create the installation package
Setup Program -> The actual setup application.
Installation Builder
The installation builder is a simple SDI application with a tabbed form where you can enter all the information needed by the setup program. For example: add files, assign shortcuts and other setup specific variables.
You can also use the wizard that will guide you through the necessary steps of creating a setup program for your software product.
The application has 4 tab-pages:
General, where you can enter application name, company name and so on.
Files, this is where you specify all files, which need to be distributed.
Shortcuts, specify shortcuts in the program folder (start menu).
Output, the final step where you enter the output directory.
After you entered all the necessary information you can build the setup program. This creates a single output file that contains all setup information and files needed for installation.
I decided to use no compression because most setups are distributed as zip files, so why compress it twice?
The generated output file is made up from 3 parts:
1. The setup program (which unpacks the files, asks for destination folder and executes setup script)
2. All files needed for the distribution glued together.
3. The setup script, which is a Windows compatible Setup Script that does all the installation stuff for us.
Setup Program
The setup program performs the following tasks:
1. Extract all files in the distribution package
2. Ask for destination folder, program folder.
3. Execute setup (.inf) script.
The .inf file describes the actions in the setup process such as:
- Copying the files to the right place
- Creating a Start menu shortcut
- Proving an uninstall procedure
All these actions are taken care of by Windows, so we don't have to implement them ourselves!
You Can Download : Here
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