is-welcome.pngThere used to be a time when I was afflicted with installer envy. You know what I mean. You’d see those cool developers with their slick install wizards and then look at your crappy zip file and think, “Why can’t that be me?!”

Well, those days are long gone. I have found my escape from archive jail. InnoSetup has released my chains!

OK. That is a bit melodramatic but InnoSetup is a very cool program that allows you to make very professional looking installers for your applications in a very short time. A new version (5.1.9) has just been released today.

Here is a list of features taken from the website:

  • Support for all versions of Windows in use today — Windows 95, 98, 2000, 2003, XP, Me, NT 4.0. (No service packs are required.)
  • Extensive support for installation of 64-bit applications on the 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Both the x64 and Itanium architectures are supported. (On the Itanium architecture, Service Pack 1 is required to install in 64-bit mode.)
  • Supports creation of a single EXE to install your program for easy online distribution. Disk spanning is also supported.
  • Standard Windows 2000/XP-style wizard interface.
  • Customizable setup types, e.g. Full, Minimal, Custom.
  • Complete uninstall capabilities.
  • Installation of files; Includes integrated support for “deflate”, bzip2, and 7-Zip LZMA file compression. The installer has the ability to compare file version info, replace in-use files, use shared file counting, register DLL/OCX’s and type libraries, and install fonts.
  • Creation of shortcuts anywhere, including in the Start Menu and on the desktop.
  • Creation of registry and .INI entries.
  • Integrated Pascal scripting engine.
  • Support for multilingual installs.
  • Support for passworded and encrypted installs.
  • Silent install and uninstall.
  • Full source code is available (Borland Delphi 2.0-5.0).

I am so completely impressed with this program that I now rarely put out a program without a proper installer. Check out the website or the download section. I recommend the QuickStart Pack for new users as it will give you everything you need to get up and running quickly.

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Tim Fehlman