Month: November 2015

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.