Author: Sinan

Scene wasn’t in this episode. Probably in one of the other ones, then 🙂

Marking our fourth award in a row, Microsoft have recognized InstallAware‘s contributions to the Windows 10 eco-system with a Visual Studio Sim-Ship Award!

As prepare to welcome 2016 in excitement of the coming holidays, we thought we’d put together a small holiday gift for you, our loyal developers – without whom we wouldn’t have lasted 11 years, save piling award atop award!

Free ZIPmagic File Compression:

1) ZIPmagic is our favorite tool to work with the 7ZIP Web Media Block files created by InstallAware.

2) It is also the best all around compression app for Windows, with patent pending Windows disk compression which they invented.

3) Take $100 worth file compression functionality, including Outlook integration, WinZip compatible ZIPX/JPEG compression, and WinRAR compatible RAR5 support; for free with ZIPmagic InstallAware edition:

http://www.installaware.com/zipmagic.msi (leave the serial field empty when installing)

Choose the software installer used by timeless software products such as Microsoft Office, Crytek Crysis, and Borland Delphi – brought to you by the largest independent software installation toolkit vendor.

From all of us at InstallAware, thanks once again for all your support over the years, and Happy Holidays!

2015 has been a year of phenomenal success for InstallAware – so much that we’re having trouble keeping track of all awards that are coming in! We just won two more awards from our favorite reseller, ComponentSource:

1) Top 100 Product Award
2) Top 50 Publisher Award

We’re thrilled to be working with our friends at ComponentSource in bringing you the best installer technology on the Microsoft(R) Windows(TM) platform today:

o Platform Pillars: Support Windows XP 32-bit (Original Release) through Windows 10 Build 1511 64-bit (Threshold 2) from a single setup package.

o Sidestep MS-Store: Pin your applications programmatically to the Windows 10 Start Menu Live Tiles, or the Windows 8.x Start Screen, or the Windows 7.x-8.x-10.x Taskbar, or the Windows 7.x-Vista-XP Start Menu.

o Perfect Provision: Guarantee that your setups are bullet-proof by running unattended, simultaneous tests on as many virtual machines as your hardware can handle.

o Agile Advancement: Create re-usable technology prerequisites with the Application Runtime wizard; fire Build Events based on pre and post build/compression/wrapping triggers; enjoy smart Find highlights in the IDE.

o The Team Topology: Microsoft Team Foundation Server and Microsoft Visual Studio integration enable global collaboration on setup projects.

o Flexible Funding: A floating license add-on lets you install infinite copies of InstallAware, as long as the usage is non-simultaneous. Studio and higher editions allow infinite build machines, even for simultaneous use!

o Aggresive Advance: InstallAware is the most frequently updated installer, among all commercial and open source “alternatives”.

Discover InstallAware today. You’ll be glad you did!

The first big update to Windows 10 is here, and InstallAware provides zero-day support for it – requiring absolutely no changes to any installations you have built and distributed out in the field.

InstallAware Studio X3 is not only more affordable. It is also far more capable than any other commercial or open source installer:

Windows 10 Build 1511 Zero-Day Support: Bypass the Windows Store and pin applications directly to the Start Menu Live Tiles or the Taskbar programmatically. You may have noticed popular apps like Firefox, which used to be able to pin themselves to the taskbar, recently lost this ability in Windows 10 Build 1511. That’s because only InstallAware can pin.

Runtime Wizard and Zero-Day Runtimes: Yes, we’ve built a decade long track-record of having zero-day support for new Microsoft technologies, including the latest .NET 4.6 and Visual C++ 14. As if that wasn’t good enough, we’ve also distilled our experience into a wizard that lets you create your very own zero-day technology prerequisites!

Microsoft Stack Integration: Visual Studio 2015 integration makes it one click to create an InstallAware setup or an App-V virtualized app. Team Foundation Server integration makes it one click to check-in and check-out projects from source control, empowering you to distribute your software integration efforts across a global workforce.

Break the Law of Entropy: Have you heard of the law of entropy in data compression? Data that has been compressed before cannot be recompressed. InstallAware seemingly breaks this law by recompressing data up to 50% better than Microsoft’s already-compressed sizes (ex: SQL Server Express 2014 SP1). Enjoy similar savings with your own application runtimes!

One-Click Upgrade: Whether you use InstallShield or NSIS, Wise or InnoSetup; you’ll find authoring a setup in InstallAware a breeze. Import EXE binaries or MSI databases (or if you have it, setup source code) into ready-to-build InstallAware projects, eliminating the barrier to upgrade and helping combat entrenchment in a particular vendor’s tookit.

The results are in! Microsoft Developer Community selected InstallAware as the Readers Choice Award Winner in the INSTALLATION, SETUP AND DEPLOYMENT TOOLS category. Thank you very much for helping make us the number one installer – we couldn’t have done this without you.

For the fourth time, Visual Studio Magazine readers have honored InstallAware as the best Visual Studio related setup programming tool. The Readers Choice survey is closely monitored. There is no ballot stuffing or vendor voting. Duplicate votes and ISP’s are removed. In sum, this result provides you with the best representation of the marketplace; best of breed tools.

The one and only InstallAware Studio X3 is unique in the following ways:

Pin to the Windows 10 Start Menu and Taskbar: Microsoft recently disabled programmatic access to the Windows 10 Taskbar. Microsoft had never allowed to pin to the new Windows 10 Start Menu either. InstallAware does both, bridging you into the most prime real estate on the Windows 10 Desktop. Just check a check-box in the “Create Shortcut” command!

Glass on Windows 10: InstallAware is the first to bring G L A S S to Windows 10. Use InstallAware‘s pre-built Glass theme, or create your own. Just rebuild existing setups without any source code changes to glassify them for Windows 10. Show off your own glass based setup splash screen, with the target OS’s Windows accent colors applied!

Pre-Flight Checks: Push your hardware to its limits with InstallAware. Run multiple simultaneous virtual machine tests on as many virtual machines as you want. Specify custom command line parameters and customize InstallAware‘s included unit testing scripts as the ultimate in pre-flight checks, with your own customizable roster.

50% Better Compression: Reduce Microsoft’s official SQL Server 2014 Express with Service Pack 1 installation into half of its already compressed size. Seemingly violating the law of entropy in data compression, InstallAware is unmatched the size and speed of the installers it creates, even outperforming the platform/OS vendor.

Seamless Upgrade: Whatever installation platform you use, you’ll find authoring a setup in InstallAware a breeze. Nonetheless, you can even import EXE binaries or source code into ready-to-build InstallAware projects, eliminating the barrier to upgrade and helping combat entrenchment in a particular vendor’s tookit.

The newly minted Jedi hero is running away from the bad guys and its raining laser fire on him.

He barely makes it to his spacecraft, only to find his weapon falling away from him.

As the craft ascends, he is desperate and stretching to pick up his weapon.

InstallAware X3 launched simultaneously with Windows 10 on July 29th. Our launch was a huge success. InstallAware X3‘s merits speak for themselves:

Automated Virtual Machine Testing: Run as many simultaneous tests as your hardware can handle on VMware and Hyper-V platforms. The default unit test checks for successful installation and removal of any existing InstallAware solution, without any modifications needed to your setup project! The unit test ships with its InstallAware source code so you can customize it per your requirements, for example to check for specific files, registry keys/values, system services, or any other target system variable. Test on troublesome VM snapshots and prove your setups are rock solid.

Programmatic Application Pinning: You don’t have to go through the cumbersome bureaucracy of the Windows Store approval process to get your app pinned to the new Windows 10 Live Tiles Start Menu. Pin as many apps as you want to this most prime piece of real estate on a Windows system – made possible only by InstallAware. We trust you to pin responsibly and respect end-user privacy, while giving you the tools to maximize exposure to your hard work.

EV Code Signing: Use the new Build Events for Extended Verification Code Signing Certificates. Build Events let you run any custom command line, including macro resolution for standard paths such as your project and IDE folders. Sign your setup and/or your application binaries. Detect signing failures and gracefully fail a setup build.

Visual Studio 2015: InstallAware‘s Visual Studio Add-In gives you one-click setup creation capabilities from any Visual Studio project, with automatic inclusion of the pre-requisite .NET and C++ frameworks needed by your solution.

Application Runtime Wizard: Got an odd runtime that’s not included? Build your own in just a few clicks, visually!

50% Better RE-Compression: Runtimes such as Microsoft SQL Server Express 2014 with Service Pack 1 compress 50% better with InstallAware – and that’s 50% better than the ALREADY compressed sizes of the runtimes, as built by Microsoft!

Thank you all very much for being a part of the success that is InstallAware. We could not have done it without you!

New InstallAware X3, launching on Wednesday this week, is first to market with automated virtual machine unit testing, Windows 10 support, and a host of other improvements:

Automated Virtual Machine Testing:

Supports VMware Workstation, VMware vSphere, and Microsoft Hyper-V.
Connect to local VMs or VMs hosted in the cloud on any supported server.
Use the Project Manager to browse your entire VM library and start testing on any VM snapshot.
Run as many simultaneous tests as your underlying hardware can handle.
Use default unit tests, or build your own unit testing scripts to check for particular services, files, registry keys, etc.
See the status of ongoing tests, as well as succeeded/failed VM tests at a single glance.
Use project settings for installation and uninstallation command lines; as well as guest operating system target folders.

Windows 10, Visual Studio 2015 Eco-System Support:

First to support Windows 10.
Maximize application exposure by progammatically pinning your applications to the new Start Menu Live Tiles section, without going through the Windows Store.
Use the production runtimes for .NET 4.6, Visual C++ 14, and SQL Server 2014 with SP1.
Enjoy 50% size reductions on runtimes such as SQL Server 2014 – on top of Microsoft’s already compressed runtime sizes.
Instantly create setup projects from the Visual Studio 2015 IDE and build installer or App-V virtualized targets.

Application Runtime Wizard:

Distills InstallAware’s decades of experience building and optimizing application runtimes.
Point-and-click to create new technology framework installers. The wizard guides you in making the right choices.
Consume new application runtimes from additional InstallAware IDE instances and an unlimited number of setups.

Build Events:

Use pre and post triggers.
Triggers fire upon compilation, compression, and MSI wrapping stages.
Run an unlimited number of applications and optionally abort the build should any of them fail.

InstallAware X3 grows your software margins, maximizes your revenue, and delights your developers with its convenience and simplicity.

Enjoy simplified agile builds, reduced bandwidth costs, and eliminated R&D expenditures.

Grow your exposure and monetize your software with InstallAware X3.

A competitor who shall remain unnamed has stooped really low.

We contracted outside SEO expert Michael Cottam, after observing for over three years a professionally executed and well camouflaged SEO attack on the ‘installaware’ keyword: our brand, our trademark, and our property.

His findings make for a terrifying read:

https://www.sempdx.org/blog/spam/parasitic-seo-installawares-competitor-attacks-using-negative-seo-tricks/

All of us at InstallAware are flattered that our unnamed competitor had to sink to these lows to challenge our product.

If nothing else, this appears to be a tacit admission that they cannot meet us fair and square in the playground, and have to resort to sleights of hand like this.

Thank you, Dear Unnamed Competitor, for your high praise.

And thank you, Dear Developers, for making InstallAware what it is. We couldn’t have done this without you.

Once again, thank you very much for your support.

InstallAware Software.

PS: If any of you are getting the error “Your access to this site has been limited” when you try to visit the blog, please download a PDF prinout of the blog post from www.installaware.com/sempdx.pdf.

InstallAware X2 is the perfect New Year’s Resolution for all setup developers:

Fastest: New InstallAware X2 creates setups that install 50% faster than InstallShield (when InstallScript is used) and 17% faster than WiX (or Windows Installer) (1).

Smallest: New InstallAware X2 creates setups that are 174% smaller than InstallShield (when InstallScript is used) and 224% smaller than WiX (or Windows Installer) (1); compresses data up to 95% smaller(2) overall.

Safest: In more than a decade, InstallAware has never opened up systems with InstallAware-installed apps to attack(3), or had its toolchain rendered inoperative by Microsoft updates(4). InstallShield has been afficted by, and afflicted end-user systems with, both types of problems.

Freshest: Only new InstallAware X2 integrates with Microsoft Visual Studio 2015 and Microsoft Team Foundation Server 2013, containing runtimes for Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6 and the entire Microsoft Windows 10 eco-system.

Super-Stable: Both InstallShield and WiX failed to create a simple ‘xcopy setup’ installing the InstallAware X2 application folder(4). Industry bloggers for InstallShield and WiX, as well as InstallShield and WiX contacts, could not be reached for comment.

Most-Visible: Only new InstallAware X2 pins your apps programmatically to the new Microsoft Windows 10 Live Tiles Start Menu, or the existing Microsoft Windows 8.1 Start Screen.

Special Effects: Only new InstallAware X2 setups have special effects like those found in Microsoft Visual Studio installers. Enjoy sliding and fading wizard animations, please your next-generation app-savvy clients. Beauty and intelligence combined!

Based on the objective metrics of speed, size, stability, and safety; as well as subjective unquantifiables such as beauty, InstallAware X2 is the only Windows Installer that makes sense.

(1) Please see InstallAware‘s benchmark results at http://www.installaware.com/benchmark.asp. Had InstallShield and WiX been able to perform the ‘xcopy setup’ as we had originally intended, our speed and size savings would have been even more dramatic! Unfortunately, this was not possible due to critical bugs.

(2) The Microsoft .NET Framework 4.5.2 runtime, when compressed with InstallAware X2, reduces from approximately 1.5 GB to 50 MB.

(3) In 2008, a vulnerability was discovered in the InstallShield Update Service Agent, as documented at https://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/837092. Arbitrary code could be executed, compromising any system with InstallShield-installed products on them that made use of the InstallShield Update Service.

(4) Microsoft’s Security Update KB2962872 is crashing multiple versions of InstallShield as described at http://windowsitpro.com/security/micros … tallshield.