Good wysiwyg installation maker

Anonymous · Post by **Anonymous** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 10:24 am

I'm currently using Smart Install Maker, have done for quite a while. However, there's no longer any support so I'm looking for a viable replacement.

While SIM works well, current security measures in Windows are making the setup.exe generated by SIM, and my app exes are being blocked by antivirus software etc. The Anti-virus in my case is Trend micro.

I need something with full uninstall capabilities as well as the ability to run a command as part of the install - in this case an app I wrote to create the databases, indexes and folders required by my main program.

Any ideas, thoughts, recommendations etc please?

lumberjack · Post by **lumberjack** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 10:47 am

Hi Jeff,

BiggyRat wrote:I'm currently using Smart Install Maker, have done for quite a while. However, there's no longer any support so I'm looking for a viable replacement.
While SIM works well, current security measures in Windows are making the setup.exe generated by SIM, and my app exes are being blocked by antivirus software etc. The Anti-virus in my case is Trend micro.
I need something with full uninstall capabilities as well as the ability to run a command as part of the install - in this case an app I wrote to create the databases, indexes and folders required by my main program.
Any ideas, thoughts, recommendations etc please?

Never used it, but have you ever tried InnoSetup? Maybe the DevTeam can give a good alternative.

BiggyRat · Post by **BiggyRat** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 10:58 am

No I haven't used Inno. Does look like it's worth a look. So does WiX setup. I'll check them both out. Thanks Johan.

alanbourke · Post by **alanbourke** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 2:36 pm

Thoughts are that it is unlikely you'll find a good, free WYSIWYG tool these days. I have used both InnoSetup and Wix, and both will allow you to do what you want. Inno is based on its own scripting language, and Wix uses configuration files with an XML-like syntax.

FoxProMatt · Post by **FoxProMatt** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 3:42 pm

FYI - Here is a link to a White Paper on using Inno Setup, and this document was prepared by one of the Visual FoxPro gurus named Doug Hennig.

http://www.doughennig.com/Papers/Pub/InnoSetup.pdf

This is a very exhaustive treatment of the topic, coming in at 28 pages with lots of details and screenshots.

robert · Post by **robert** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 4:29 pm

Jeff,

I am using inno setup for the X# installer.
WIX would work as well, but somehow I don't like the MSI installers.
An Inno setup installer can be easily run again without uninstall first.
With the Inno scripting possibilities you can do almost anything.

Robert

IanB · Post by **IanB** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 7:11 pm

We have been using NSIS installer for many years we find it works really well and you can do everything with it. (we run mini VO or .Net programs from it to do anything really clever). Maybe worth taking a look to.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/nsis/

https://nsis.sourceforge.io/Main_Page

Ian

Jamal · Post by **Jamal** » Mon Apr 29, 2019 9:55 pm

For several years, I've used Advanced Installer https://www.advancedinstaller.com.
I have the pro version and it does everything you asked for and much more.

MathiasHakansson · Post by **MathiasHakansson** » Tue Apr 30, 2019 7:00 am

About the security measures in later version of anti virus software. As some of the anti virus software are based on "reputation", you can get problems with any of the mentioned tools if your certificate is new or if it has accumulated a bad reputation.
We build our main installation with WIX, but it is also dependent on other 3rd party installations, like sql-server. Our wix-installation is signed, but as it's dependent on other files, we pack it all into a 7zip self extracting archive. 7zip is free. This exe-file is signed with an external signing tool (signtool.exe, I think it's included in visual studio installation).
When you start the installation the UAC dialog is shown with the information from your certificate.
Not this is where the reputation comes in. When your certificate is new customers will experience problems with some anti virus software. What you can do is to contact the anti virus software vendors and whitelist your certificate. Not all vendors has this service, some has service where you can report false positives instead.

The 7zip extracted files are deleted after the main install process is finished. Really easy and convenient.

/MathiasH

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