I currently have a project with an installer I made with NSIS, but I would like to have an update to new versions that only has the changed files and will show a changelog. The target platform is windows. What methods/suggestions do you have to do this?
A:
One possible way would be to store an XML file on your download server that has each released version and a list of files that changed for each release. The installer would write a registry key on install of the version of files it installed.
Then, on update, the installer downloads and parses the XML file, and finds any nodes that have higher version numbers than what is currently installed. You display all the files in a text box on an installer page, and when the user confirms, the installer downloads all the files, and then updates the registry to the latest version.
Matt
2009-06-16 12:21:22
I only have a few files, and they will get changed with almost every update. So I just wanted to bundle them in an updater.exe, and have that installer be different than the full installation exe file. Still not sure what is best... maybe a full installation everytime is good enough for my case.
emostar
2009-06-28 08:09:42
A:
You might want to reconsider using NSIS. If you are into patching and distributing updates you will probably get the most benefit from using an installer technology that utilises the Windows Installer capabilities (msiexec).
NSIS is basically a program that runs and does what you want whereas a Windows Installer type installer forces you to split your application into features and components which can be managed by the windows installer msi service. MSI will track things like what versions of products you have installed, whether running the installer again will run in maintenance mode, whether you are allowed to install 2 products of different versions, whether a patch can be applied to a particular version of a product or any other question relating to updates and installs.
Basically most of the stuff you are requesting will be available out-of-the-box if you change to a Windows Installer technology. Whereas if you use NSIS (which doesn't use Windows Installer technology) then you will have to implement it all yourself.
Just as an example there is a pretty comprehensive installer builder called AdvancedInstaller ( http://www.advancedinstaller.com/ ) that sounds like what you want. Alternatively, if you want to spend the rest of your life trawling forums and newsgroups then there is an open source product called WiX that does something similar ;)
David Newcomb
2010-05-27 14:02:23