Installaware: A Script-driven Software Packaging Tool For Creating Windows Installer Packages

By Author: Candice Jones
Total Articles: 19
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I found out about InstallAwareâ„¢ while searching for MSI scripting on Google. The InstallAware page I came across had a term called "Genuine Scripting for Windows Installer". While I thought this would be a long shot, I nevertheless downloaded the trial version and fired up the InstallAwareâ„¢ IDE. Sure enough it had two tabs on the bottom, labeled suggestively Visual and Code. This was getting exciting! I clicked the Code tab - and lo and behold, there it was!

Over the next couple of days, I played with the InstallAwareâ„¢ IDE and created several setups. I actually found out InstallAware'sâ„¢ scripting to be very powerful - you get to control not only the dialogs and logic of your install, but also the uninstall. If you ever wanted to do more than just run a custom program or show the standard uninstall dialog, you can do that in InstallAwareâ„¢. I went ahead an added a custom dialog which asked my users why they were uninstalling the product, and posted the feedback to a web server, all as an integral part of the uninstall wizard. And there's more: If you want to seamlessly uninstall an older version ...
... of your product while installing the new version, you can do that too. I was even able to create setups that dynamically configured their feature-sets on-the-fly. Best of all, InstallAwareâ„¢ produced pure Windows Installer setups - all my scripting logic automatically got compiled into an MSI database every time I clicked the build button. I did not have to look at a single MSI table or sequence for this to happen. Moreover, my InstallAwareâ„¢ setups did not require a third party scripting engine to be installed before they could run. Firing up the generated MSI started my installations immediately. Needless to say, I was very impressed.

I am impressed with InstallAwareâ„¢. Having used major MSI setup authoring tools, I can say that InstallAwareâ„¢ represents a unique and fresh alternative to the existing installers, which are essentially different front-end user interfaces to MSI databases and require Windows Installer knowledge.

InstallAwareâ„¢ completely isolates the setup developer from Windows Installer tables. The tool itself is not designed to be a database editor but it builds an MSI database based on your InstallAwareâ„¢ script actions. This makes the MSI development very easy for a user who is not familiar with Windows Installer or a user who does not want to directly deal with the raw data found in MSI tables. On the other hand, if you want to see Windows Installer tables and/or make direct modifications to tables, InstallAwareâ„¢ may not be the right tool for you. Because it does not directly expose any Windows Installer tables to the user. Essentially it is not designed to be a MSI database editor. It lets you keep the same setup authoring practices and migrate all your existing skills to Windows Installer. You will completely avoid setup re-engineering, and get going with Windows Installer right away.

You can find out more about InstallAware technologies at http://www.installaware.com