InstallAware

Hi,

I thought I'd try the free version of your product. I have 4Mb of application and files that I need to create an installer for. It's from C# and uses .net framework 4.5.

Installed it (I was a little uncertain of what the runtimes were for so I made sure to install the one that matched my targeted .net framework), ran Visual Studio.... nothing.

After some googling it turned out that the installer had not installed the VS plugin. Strange, since the free version ONLY WORKS with VS. Oh well, Ok. Change the install, and do it again.

Run VS, put in the settings for the project, and hit go.... some time later I get my new installer.... over 240Mb!!! From 4Mb?

I figure out that it's thanks to including the .net framework runtime. I look and look but there's no way of not including the .net framework in the installer. Why? I don't want it.

After some more reading it turns out that if I had not included the runtimes then maybe it would work as I want. So I change the InstallAware install to remove the runtimes and try again - same problem (and by the way, when I was doing that the number shown for space required was totally crazy). So I uninstall InstallAware, then reinstall it without the runtimes - same problem (I think it found the old installed runtimes and used them anyway or something). So then I uninstalled InstallAware, remove the runtimes and clear the install directory, etc., reinstall again, and try to build the installer - but now I get an error as it can't find something to do with 'net452_full'. Guessing that the settings for the installer are based on the last time I tried to build the installer (when the .net framework runtimes were there), which is what the error suggests, I try to find a way to delete the installer settings so I can start from scratch. No joy. Can't find 'em in Visual Studio, can't find them in the Project Folder.

Conclusion? Uninstalled, and I'm downloading InstallShield.

Suggestion: If you want to offer a free version where you can't choose what prerequisites are put in or not, at least offer a simple option like 'Include .net runtimes and others in the installer' so I can turn it off.
Suggestion: Include a way to completely remove the settings for the installer build and start from scratch.

Shame, I wanted to like it.

As a bonus, after uninstalling InstallAware, the first time I ran Visual Studio I got an error saying that InstallAware was having a problem running.... so that's nice.

Fortunately it seems to have gone away now. I hope it's solved rather than just not making an error.

Thanks for your suggestions and ... good luck with your choice.

Regards

Dear Francesco,

Thanks for your classy reply, I appreciate it (there are plenty of forums where my post would have lead to a lot of flaming....).

For what it's worth, so far it seems to be working out, though I don't totally love the way InstallShield seemed to find and warn me about some dependencies that I don't think I have (at least I certainly don't have the dlls anywhere).... spent a little time looking at that. And I don't love the way the installer is separated from the original project, that seems quite counter intuitive, I much preferred your system. But the actual outcome seems good, so I can't complain.

Oh, I wanted to clarify:

> So I change the InstallAware install to remove the runtimes and try again - same problem (and by the way, when I was doing that the number shown for space required was totally crazy).

By which I mean that in the InstallAware installer, when I had selected 'Change' and then was removing the runtimes, the 'space required' figure was in the order of minus 2 billion! Just thought it might be helpful to you to know that so you can tweak it!

Thanks again,

James

Thanks James! Of course I'll report your notes to our team.

Regards