InstallAware

Do you know when you will release a InstallShield Converter?

I'd also need to convert merge modules.

If you got a beta I'd like to test it!

Its in the works - nothing testable so far

Do you have the installshield script converter?

Unfortunately we don't. Differences in technology as well as their obfuscated project format has made this a very challenging task.

There are two approaches you can still use:

PackageAware: Convert ANY setup, regardless of technology (EXE/MSI/native/Windows Installer), into a ready to build InstallAware setup project. Works with pre-install and post-install snapshots, encapsulating the delta into a ready to build setup, which you may of course also further tweak and edit in the InstallAware IDE.

Database Import Wizard: Convert any MSI setup or MSM merge module to InstallAware. Note that custom actions are not converted but the entire database table structures, files, directories, and everything else are successfully migrated into an MSIcode script.

Both of these tools are available with InstallAware Studio Admin.

I should note that PackageAware has been in continuous development for the past 4 years and has been optimized over time and proven itself in real world usage re-packaging very complex application installations. So that is definitely your recommended route.

MichaelNesmith wrote:Differences in technology as well as their obfuscated project format has made this a very challenging task.

Their XML code looks almost readable for the .ism files. Are you referring to their binary format, or also their XML?

The binary would seem to be the tough nut to crack?

If anybody has any ideas, we're all ears

CandiceJones wrote:The binary would seem to be the tough nut to crack?

But why crack the nut when you are big enough to swallow it whole?

I fiddled around with IS 10.5 for an hour (total usage) and finally found their "save as XML" option.

Someone more experienced with IS (your target customer) would presumably have found this too, or would be able to perform this extra step. The XML format is much more preferable when dealing with version control systems.

Keep It Simple... no? A simple "we can only import .ism projects saved as XML" notice will suffice.

I am currently evaluating IA now, and although .ism import would be helpful, I think I am better off rewriting our install project from scratch. My predecessor was ambitious and a lot of the stuff he did simply doesn't work very well. Time to implement this thing from scratch.

So I think I can manage without IS import. Personally, I would like to see SQL Anywhere support before IS-import... (running SQL-Anywhere scripts is one of the areas my predecessor didn't manage 100% )

As an InstallShield user, do you know how far back (as in version numbers) the "save as XML" option goes, and also whether it is able to save all kinds of projects as purely XML? (basic MSI/InstallScript MSI/etc.)

MichaelNesmith wrote:As an InstallShield user

I'm just some guy that was asked to maintain an old InstallShield project and add some new features.

My conclusion was that IS 10.5 is probably not suited to our needs (it has no Windows Server 2003 knowledge, nor any of the new .Net framework runtimes, etc...), so I contacted the IS guys to talk about an upgrade. They refuse to upgrade such an old version...

So that is why I am here now, to figure out what I need so I can make a clean escape from IS.

Long story short: I haven't used IS before.