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I am trying to create an installation program to install some hobby software onto some friend's PCs. I would like to add the program to the list of programs that are displayed when you select "All Programs" from "Start" so that they can select it in the normal way. I can do this by inserting the shortcut into the appropriate library. However I found that the path to the folder is different in different versions of Windows. To do this I thought I would need to:

  1. Detect which Windows OS the PC is running (e.g. XP or Windows Vista). I do not know how to do this. Can you help?

  2. Insert the shortcut into the folder appropriate for that OS. How do I find out the path which is appropriate for each OS? I have been able to find the different paths for XP and Vista as I have PCs at home for those operating systems. However how can I find out the path for the other operating systems?

Dumb Question - am I taking the right approach or am I barking up the wrong tree altogether? Some of you who are familiar with installing software on Windows may be able to comment.

Thank you!

Clinton Reilly
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2 Answers2

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You are trying to do lots of that stuff manually, which is wrong, because there is software out there that you can use to create installation packages. You can try with NSIS, but it is just one among many. Take a look at this SO question for some other alternatives.

Community
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Aleksandar Vucetic
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I used Inno Setup several times. It is free, simple, feature full. If you need a simple Windows installer you can create it with Inno in a few minutes.

Ilia Frenkel
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