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Poll: What is the best and easy to use installer to use with .NET 3.5 SP1 windows applications?

tvanfosson
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mrtaikandi
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  • Overlaps or dupe with : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3767/what-is-the-best-choice-for-building-windows-installers – dance2die Apr 09 '09 at 12:57
  • It all depends on the size of your application, and the number of different environments you're going to install it to, and who is going to run those installers. – thijs Apr 09 '09 at 13:16

9 Answers9

19

My vote is for:

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System - it's popular, easy to use and FREE

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System (NSIS) is a script-driven Windows installation system with minimal overhead backed by Nullsoft, the creators of Winamp. NSIS has risen to popularity as a widely used alternative to commercial and proprietary products like InstallShield. - Wikipedia

There is rich plugins directory for NSIS, where you can find for example a plugin for installing windows services.

http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Category:Plugins

Commercial alternatives:

Other:

  • WiX - could be very good if you can spent some time on the learning curve. It is used by many Microsoft products.
  • Inno Setup

List of Installation Software at Wikipedia

Konstantin Tarkus
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8

My personal preference is Advanced Installer, it has a nice GUI for creation and editing of projects which are XML files so fits into source control easily.

Richard Slater
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Innosetup is the fastest one I've used to make setup files quickly and easily (out of Nullsoft and VS), providing you get the designer that is a separate download.

Chris S
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In the past I've used both InstallShield and Wise. I wouldn't say that using either of them is a joy, but they get the job done for large Windows applications.

Of the two, I would generally favour InstallShield.

Richard Ev
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2

I very much like WiX, which is said to be the installer used by MS internally for Office.

Lucero
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  • And Flight Simulator http://www.joyofsetup.com/category/flight-simulator/ – thijs Apr 09 '09 at 13:27
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    WiX has been a disappointment. The Repair fails far too often on customers' machines, and I cannot reproduce the problem. The log files are uninformative, cryptic and useless. The XML format is byzantine. About the only good thing is it's text-based and free (and worth every penny). I'm looking for alternatives. You don't get what you don't pay for. – Pierre Jun 26 '15 at 23:26
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I used NSIS on my first-and-last Windows project, and was quite happy with it.

Can Berk Güder
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2

You could use ClickOnce deployment, if your environment allows you to do so. (If it's convenient).

Actually any answer could apply to your question here, choosing the "right" installer never possible for "a windows application".

  • How many different machines are your going to install to?
  • How large is your application?
  • Does it have many dependencies? (Databases etc.)
  • What is the "level" of the users who are going to install your app? Are they system administrators who install apps for a living, or are they joe-random "Hey lets click install because it looks cool" types.

just my 2ct.

thijs
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1

The one out of the box from Visual Studio 2008.

Otávio Décio
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0

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System anytime... simply because of it's ease of use and more than that, it's free!

Shree
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