I use InstallShield 5.5 for distributing my apps, the new version compiles
smaller than previous versions.
I select optimize for the web, and leave out many of the IS optional
dialogs. I have built install which are reliable, and small in size and
still will pass the desktop Windows requirements for a visual install.
Install Shield in my experience has great support, they post patches on
their web site, and have an excellent news group where technical questions
are answered quickly.
I am interested in finding out more about what others are using for install
tools, and how other install companies license their software, do they
charge royalties? ect.
Best regards
Ed Szalajeski
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ken Corey [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: Monday, March 22, 1999 1:07 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Wise and InstallShield
>
>
> >I use InstallShield to package my Palm application
> >and yesterday downloaded & tried "Wise" - I heard
> >about it in this list. My InstallShield executable
> >was 1,212K and the Wise executable is 580K! And
> >it also runs faster than InstallShield. Did anyone
> >else notice this?. I was using "InstallShield Express"
> >- is that why it made a huge executable? In both cases
> >I was using the maximum compression option.
>
>
> We use the full-blown Installshield. It's a *pig* as far as
> download space
> goes. The binaries for our app take up maybe 4MB. The distributable is
> 12MB (the way we distribute it, we needed to break it up into 3 separate
> installs, so we have three times the overhead. Ugh.) In
> addition, version
> 5.0 came out with a bug that broke our installation. It wasn't fixed in
> 5.1, and we had to upgrade to the next version (5.5) at a hefty fee to get
> this bug fixed. Talk about a lousy company.
>
> If you're needing a simple, no-fancy stuff kind of install, you might be
> interested in something I found a while back called "INF-tool". It's
> available at http://inner-smile.com , and it's cheap. ($39 for a
> single-user license.) (I don't work with or for this guy in any
> way, I just
> like the idea of an amazingly tiny install.)
>
> This creates a 2-4K .inf script to do the install, and has a 20K or so
> binary to call it. When you make your install, it compressses everything
> into a single self-extracting file so it's easy to distribute and is tiny.
>
> If you need to do fancy things, you can set up your code in a .dll to do
> anything extra. A little harder to code than IS, but orders of magnitude
> smaller.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -Ken
>
>
>
>
>
