Deploy an hta file in an exe or msi file

Question

I've written an HTA file frontend for our web app that allows the web app to run without web browser status bars etc, and allows it to access the local system for certain tasks.

I need a way to deploy this to customers. I need an installer to supply an hta file, an ico file, and add a link to them in the start menu and on the users desktop. I looked at building an installer with NSIS, but I couldn't figure out how to assign the icon to the shortcuts - The icon had to be a standard HTA one.

Can this be done with NSIS, or should I be using another installer?

P.s. I've got no particular preference for NSIS, it's just something I once used a very long time ago. When I download stuff, I think I prefer them to be msi files that launch with windows installer (it feels more like downloading a .rpm or .deb on linux which I am used to) but I know nothing about how those are created. I'm a web/linux guy who knows very little about windows programming.

Answer 1

Check out the NSIS Scripting Reference for CreateShortcut. You should be able to do something like this:

SetOutPath $DESKTOP
CreateShortcut "$DESKTOP\MyShortcut.lnk" "$INSTDIR\MyHTAFile.hta" "" "$INSTDIR\MyIconFile.ico"