Free install system with GUI

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225

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+4 Q:

Free install system with GUI

Hello.

Is there any free install system with a GUI interface? I found one - Advanced Installer, but free edition is too limited, I even can't show EULA. Other free tools like NSIS, WiX... are scripting only. I got no extra time to dig into new scripting language, or whatever time consuming activities.

Currently I'm using default Visual Studio deployment system. But it is impossible to make it overwrite any previous installation regardless deployment Version. (Am I right here?)

So I wonder is there free GUI applications for building an .msi deployment except Advanced Installer and VS Deployment system?

+2 A:

Votive is a wizardy front-end to WiX that plugs into Visual Studio. Depending on the complexity of your solution, you may still need to edit the wxs manually, so this may not be what you need.

Paul Butcher 2010-01-06 11:52:40

I still should edit an XML file in order to set everything up. So this is not the exact thing I'm looking for. But thank you anyway.

Vasiliy Borovyak 2010-01-06 11:57:13

Do you know Nullsoft Script Install System and IZPack? They're both free and easy to customize.

EDIT: IZPack requires JVM.

XpiritO 2010-01-06 11:55:23

Do you see in my question I mentioned NSIS? Is IzPack have a GUI application to create deployment packages without editing text files?

Vasiliy Borovyak 2010-01-06 11:58:52

Sorry, didn't notice your mention to Nullsoft Script Install System (NSIS). I've been using IZPack for a long time and I personally like it very much, although you have to edit a XML configuration file in order to deploy your installation package... and as I've just read your reply to the other answer, I think this isn't what you want. Sorry for any inconvenience.

XpiritO 2010-01-06 12:01:45

Also IzPack requires JVM. None of my customers have it installed. So IzPack is really not an option. Thanks for the try.

Vasiliy Borovyak 2010-01-06 12:05:09

Have you already checked the list of installation software (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_installation_software) that is available at Wikipedia?

XpiritO 2010-01-06 12:19:52

There is nothing new there except for DreamShield. To pity everything French there. But I have to give it a try.

Vasiliy Borovyak 2010-01-06 12:35:07

+2 A:

We're using HM NIS EDIT: A Free NSIS Editor/IDE

http://hmne.sourceforge.net/

It basically displays a wizard to create the NSIS script.

ToastedSoul 2010-01-06 12:05:18

This is something I was looking for. I'll try that too. Thank you.

Vasiliy Borovyak 2010-01-06 12:06:52

The only problem I was running into this was when I created our (internal) Boost installer, which consists of around 35'000 files - HM NIS Edit took forever to add those files (but eventually succeeded). I'm now 7zipping all those files into a single archive and add that instead (plus the 7z command line tool and a .bat file to extract the archive while installing). Other than that, we've had no problems.

ToastedSoul 2010-01-06 12:12:51

Well, thanks mighty gods, my app. has 10 files only. :)

Vasiliy Borovyak 2010-01-06 12:18:45

+2 A:

We use InnoSetup and although this uses scripting, it's pretty simple and a special GUI front end is also available.

Rob 2010-01-06 12:09:57

One more item in my TODO list. Thank you.

Vasiliy Borovyak 2010-01-06 12:12:14

+1 A:

Your assumption that MSI files created through VS setup projects cannot update previous installations is not correct. To enable that functionality, you will have to increment the version number each time you build a new setup (only the first 3 digit groups are relevant, so 3.2.0.0 and 3.2.0.1 make no difference).

At the same time you will also have to specify a new product code (VS will ask you to do that when you change the version number).

Last thing is to leave the UpgradeCode the same through all versions that you build (unless you want to have parallel installation of different versions).

0xA3 2010-01-06 12:19:17

This is what I mean under "regardless deployment version". The problem is 4-th digit is not relevant. Also sometime we need to overwrite application even if version is completely same (including 4-th digit). So even if we have 3.2.0.1 installed another installation package of the version 3.2.0.1 must overwrite all existing files.

Vasiliy Borovyak 2010-01-06 12:29:07

+1 A:

Maybe this is not relevant yet, but with Visual Studio 2010 you can use InstallShield Limited Edition as described in the announcement on top of http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winformssetup/threads.

You can try this out already with Visual Studio 2010 Beta 2.

0xA3 2010-01-06 12:25:57

I'll check it out. Thanks.

Vasiliy Borovyak 2010-01-06 12:32:04

And, well, it's only free as in "free for Visual Studio licensees" ;-)

0xA3 2010-01-06 13:09:38

+2 A:

You should take a look at InstallJammer. It's free, open source, and I think you'll find it can do anything you need.

Damon 2010-01-06 16:19:12

Screenshots looks fantastic! I'l try that first. :)

Vasiliy Borovyak 2010-01-08 10:22:31

ansaurus

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Free install system with GUI

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