Daily Cup of Tech

I am not the type of person who lets different ways of doing things get in my way. I know that I can put hot water into a cup and then add a tea bag. I could also put the tea bag into the cup and then add hot water. In the end, I still get tea.

But, there are some people, especially when it comes to technology, who need to have things done just so. These are the people who, when asked about a specific web page, will tell you, “I’m not sure what the page is called but you can get to it by going to Google, searching for ‘life hack’, click on the first website that comes up, then click on ‘ALL’ near the top of the page. Then, look for their search box and type in ‘Tephlon’. Click on the first result that you find and then look for the word ‘Tephlon’ in that page. It will be a link so click on it. Then click on the coffee mug. It will take you to a page. On that page it will say ‘web’ and then have a website address next to it. Click on that link and you are there! Pretty simple, hey?”

OK. Maybe that is a bit of an extreme example but it gets my point across. These are the users who know exactly what they do on a computer and that’s it. They do not know how to do anything else and that is the way they like it!

So, if you ever need them to install a piece of software from an zip archive, you’re toast because they are used to those nice little installers. If your instructions are more complicated that “Click Next. Next. Next. Next. Finish”, they glaze over and you are stuck doing the installation for them.

Luckily, there are a whole pile of free installers available on the Internet that are just waiting for you to download and build. Here are my favorites:

1. Inno Setup - Download (I recommend the Quick Start Pack)
2. Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS) - Download
3. Install Creator - Download
4. Patch Maker - Download
5. Advanced Installer - Download
6. CreateInstall - Download
7. RedShift - Download
8. Ghost Installer - Download
9. SSE Setup - Download

If you found this post useful, why don't you buy me a cup of coffee to show your gratitude?

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10 Responses to “Awesome Free Install Builders”

1. Christoph Says:
   June 6th, 2007 at 7:51 am

   Although far from easy, there is also WiX. This open source project started by a Microsoft employee in his spare time was what Microsoft ended up using for the Office installer (among others). It’s highly customizable and since it generates MSIs, you can push them out with Active Directory.

   But therein lies my problem. I have a .exe installer (it’s an update to a program used by everyone) that I can’t push out with Active Directory since it seems to only allow .msi. Should I just form an MSI by monitoring everyone that installer changes on a system?

2. Christoph Says:
   June 6th, 2007 at 7:51 am

   Oops… forgot the link.
   http://wix.sourceforge.net/

3. inthewayboy Says:
   June 6th, 2007 at 1:49 pm

   Another vote for WIX, mostly because of the previously mentioned Active Directory deployment aspect. The structure isn’t too bad once you get a hold of it, best suggestion I can say is to check out this tutorial:

   http://www.tramontana.co.hu/wix/

   And just keeping pounding away until you get it. My needs are rather minimal, most of my installers just need to put files in a specific place and make a few shortcuts, so my installer aren’t too complicated.

4. DCS Media - Smart Business using Technology Says:
   June 7th, 2007 at 5:00 am

   need an installation program for your application, you don’t want to spend a ton of money buying an large installation package. That’s the whole reason you wrote your program: to start making money! The Daily Cup of Technology posted a great list of 9 free install builders

5. Jared Harley Says:
   June 7th, 2007 at 8:47 am

   Okay, so maybe I was having too much fun following the “directions”, but I got completely lost at this step:

   Then click on the coffee mug.

   I expected the directions to lead me to the best site in the world, Daily Cup of Tech, but I just got stuck on the lifehack.org custom google search page.

6. Tim Fehlman Says:
   June 7th, 2007 at 8:54 am

   Jared,

   Just goes to show that not every search on Google comes out the same. When I search for ‘life hack’, the first entry that I get is LifeHacker.com, not LifeHack.org.

   Interesting…

   Tim

   P.S. I never actually expected anyone to follow those instructions! Thanks for being so anal detail oriented!

7. Rod Says:
   June 7th, 2007 at 1:02 pm

   Tim,

   Never underestimate the power of a user to follow instructions exactly to the letter.

   I sent out an email warning my users not to fall for the so-called “Teddy Bear” virus hoax, I made the mistake of attaching the hoax email. Sure enough, no one read my message, they just jumped down to the instructions and deleted the file.

   Rod

8. Rob Dunn Says:
   June 8th, 2007 at 2:58 pm

   My absolute favorite is Inno Setup - coupled with the ISTool, you can’t go wrong!

9. Dave Says:
   June 13th, 2007 at 7:49 am

   -Christoph

   I’m assuming you’re using the Advertise functionailty of AD rather than using AD in conjunction with SMS?

   If SMS is involved at all (in that AD is advertising the app, but using SMS to actually push it) then you can use EXE’s.

   If you want an MSI from your EXE, you’ll have to capture what it does. Not always a trivial matter, and usually requires good knowledge of Windows structure to be sure you don’t capture the wrong things (you can easily hose your SMS client for example).

   If it’s an Installshield installer, or an installer that supports a silent functionality via command-line switches, you can simply “wrap” the installer in an MSI via a Custom action. This way AD thinks it’s an MSI but you retain the legacy installer functionality.

10. Daniel Says:
    June 20th, 2007 at 6:12 am

    If you need a multiplatform installer (Linux, Windows, Mac, Solaris etc.), BitRock provides free licenses for open source projects

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