Evaluation experience (2)

[Tinus]

Hi, I'm a user of InstallShield Express (ISX) since many years.
The last days I've evaluated InstallAware Express 6.0 Build 060606 (IAE) and Developer.

In summary:

IAE has a couple of advantages and good features, especially in the areas support (this forum here),
web media blocks, installation of pre requisites and runtimes, patch management, web updates.
To compete with ISX you need a Developer edition, the InstallAware Express edition is too limited for my setup requirements.

The downsides from my point of view:

Feature/File management
This is much more easier in ISX. I can easily drag'n drop files between features.
I can assign the required flag to a feature to partition my setup. To get a similar flexibility, Developer edition or higher is required.

Dialogs
In IAE I have many predefined Dialogs and Themes but ISX allows custom banners and bitmaps in the standard dialogs.
The final dialog in IA has a run application check box but you can't use this with IA Express (you need to change the script).

Languages
ISX shipps with a couple of translated languages. I usually create setups in English and German,
sometimes in Greek, Russian, Italian or even Japanese.
In IA I have to do the translation on my own. For me the most important disadvantage.

Merge modules
IA is missing a good merge module browser.

If InstallAware will address these areas I will definitly switch.
At the moment the advantages are not big enough for my requirements.

If anybody already made the transition from ISX to IA with similar requirements, please comment.

[casic]

Languages
ISX shipps with a couple of translated languages. I usually create setups in English and German,
sometimes in Greek, Russian, Italian or even Japanese.
In IA I have to do the translation on my own. For me the most important disadvantage.

This point will be solved in a few weeks

The German Language Pack is currently in the beta test phase and will become available in a few weeks. Translations are provided for InstallAware 5.31 and 6.0. All editions will be supported! Translation work for 5.31 is completed (over 3500 translations) - 6.0 in progress. The included Language Pack Wizard not only supports 1:1 translations but also can use well known translations for unknown dialogs, script lines etc.!

This Language Pack has been created with the Language Pack Manager for InstallAware, which will be available in the future too.

Thank you,

Markus

[Gizm0]

Greek transalation is also ready, and it will be included in the upcoming language package release.

[Tinus]

Thanks for this information. Good news.

What languages will be in the Language Pack?

And will this be a free update or an extra (expensive) package?