Can't find a generic topic about this but what do you guys recommend for an application that creates a simple installer? Just need something that places it into an appropriate folder in Program Files, adds shortcuts to the StartMenu.
My professor recommend Superpimp but that seems like overkill. :P
Thanks SO!
I use to use izPack with my Java projects. You can add it into your Ant script and have it produce a single file installer.
I'm using Installshield. The negative side is that I couldn't find good tutorials about creating your application installer. I have to discover it myself.
If you expect your app to be running on different countries (different windows vista languages) and your app is writing/updating a file on same path (c:\program files\your app), you gonna have some problems. You can assign Network user permission to your specific file or folder, but it'll won't work on a spanish Windows (in this case you have to give permission to 'Servicio de Red'). It's a pain in the neck having two installshields projects, one for each language. In this case I'm writing what I need on a Isolated Storage folder, a place where user actually has permissions for writing. The other workaround is to disable UAC on Windows (I don't like it).
Installshield is interesting, you can set everything using its endless string tables, configure your own images for dialogs, etc. I'm having some issues to embed an exe file within the installer (I can only add a msi file, not a exe). But in general it's a good product.
InnoSetup is nice and easy to use. You can pretty much take one of their sample script and replace in your file names, and you will have an installer done in a few minutes. Check it out at:
There is always WiX which is free and opensource.
I also forgot to mention. If you are using Visual Studio, at least last I checked, there is a way to create an installer with it, it was super easy and pretty much point and click. Not sure if it is all versions though.
izpack is cool, though, it is more interesting to deploy java projects via Java Web Start, due to the ease of update and redeployement of new versions.
Use one that creates a msi installer such as WiX or the WiX plugin for VS, or Installshield LE or VS own installer project.
Be nice to your end users and use msi, if they deploy applications through AD deployment they will appreciate this.
I think WiX is harder than others but it is worth the effort as it is very robust and highly configurable/scriptable.
While I wouldn't call WiX a very simple tool (certainly not a point-and-click one) it is a very powerful interface to Windows Installer technology. Should you decide to use WiX (and your application requires .NET Framework) you might also conisder using SharpSetup - it provides a multilanguage bootstrapper, allows you to create installer GUI in Visual Studio designer (with 10+ templates), simplifies adding components to your WiX source, etc.