7 replies to this topic

[seier]

Hi gang,
I'm interested in making a list of programs that create self extractors, that will launch a setup program and .msi documents and how much they cost.  
ส.95 Mijenix Zip Magic - Creates a self extractor, with custom icon, and launches an .exe or document automatically trouble is users, still have to specify where to extract the temp files, just like Winzip Self-Extractor Pro แ.  QuickZip is free, but it crashes far too much, and won't work under most conditions.  
Thanks in advance to everyone who replies,
Christian Blackburn

[Stefan Krueger]

InstallShield's Package for the Web is free. You can either let users specify the extract location, or specify a default without letting them select. You can (optionally) display dialogs (password protection, display RTF text) and specify the text in the version info resource of the exe file. As far as I know will only launch an executable, so if you want to run an .msi you would either have to specify msiexec.exe as program, or include a launcher exe (several available free). If you want to give it a try:
http://www.installshield.com/pftw

[seier]

Right on.  Thank you very much Stefan.  I really appreciate all your help and your website's existence.  
-Christian

[seier]

It would seem you can't use a custom icon.  Do you know of a program that'll embed a different icon into an .exe.  

[Stefan Krueger]

I think that is possible with WinZIP self extractor. Not sure whether there are other self extractor tools that support custom icons.

[Kurt Schneider]

Christian,

Keep in mind that the WinZip self extractor custom icons need to be 16 x 16 under 3000 bytes in size.  Pretty lame, but workable.

Kurt Schneider

[Jim S]

If you end up using PackageForTheWeb, you might need to be aware of this little pitfall. The other apps mentioned probably have a similar feature:

PackageForTheWeb has an option to delete the setup files after it finishes. If you want to use this option, and  you use a launcher exe, it must support a command-line parameter that keeps the launcher exe open until msiexec ends. Otherwise PFTW will delete the setup files as soon as Windows Installer takes over from the launcher exe.

Of course, you'll probably just want to keep the setup files on the machine. Windows Installer features like Install On Demand, Auto-Repair, etc. don't work if the setup files are unavailable.

[seier]

Hi Yes, I left the setup files on the hard drive.  The annoying thing is if the user moves my application's program group anywhere, but where the installation put it, the Windows Installer will just re-create the initial program group.  This is without the user even going into add/remove and selecting repair.  Does anyone know how to avoid this?  Please include steps.  When people tell me just go into Orca I get lost :).  Like a little bunny rabbit :).  No Seriously, there are just too many options in Orca it's crazy, and then I changed one and my .msi was supposedly invalid.