Little Install Builder

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Description

There are a lot of setup programs available, but I found that their code may add more than 250KB to the total size of the final setup application, and because most of my applications are not much bigger than 100KB, I decided to write my own installation builder.

The application does not have all the features available in commercial setup builders, but it's a good start (I think...). Maybe in the future I will extend the installation builder with more features, but for now I found it good enough for my needs. If you have any suggestions or improvements please let me know!

Little Install Builder is made up out of two parts:

1. Installation Builder -> Used to create the installation package.
2. Setup Program -> The actual setup application.

Installation Builder

The installation builder is a simple SDI application with a tabbed form where you can enter all the information needed by the setup program. For example: add files, assign shortcuts and other setup specific variables. You can also use the wizard, which will guide you through the necessary steps of creating a setup program for your software product.

The application has 4 tab-pages:

1. General, where you can enter application name, company name and so on.
2. Files, this is where you specify all files that are needed to be distributed.
3. Shortcuts, for specifying shortcuts in the program folder (start menu).
4. Output, the final step where you enter the output directory.

After you entered all the necessary information you can build the setup program. This creates a single output file that contains all setup information and files needed for installation.
I decided to use no compression because most setups are distributed as zip files, so why compress it twice? The generated output file is made up from 3 parts:

1. The setup program = stub.exe (which unpacks the files, asks for destination folder and executes setup script).
2. All files needed for the distribution glued together.
3. The setup script, which is a Windows compatible Setup Script that does all the installation stuff for us.

Setup Program

The setup program performs the following tasks:

1. Extract all files from the distribution package.
2. Ask for a destination folder and program folder.
3. Execute setup (.inf) script.

The .inf file describes the actions in the setup process such as:

• Copying the files to the right place.
• Creating a start menu shortcut.
• Providing an uninstall procedure.

All these actions are taken care of by Windows, so we don't have to implement them ourselves!

Implementation Highlights

Because there's too much code to explain, I'll just give you a list of implementation highlights.
This project shows you how to:

• Create a self-extracting setup file.
• Create a simple .inf setup script.
• Run an executable that is linked in your resources.
• Create a setup wizard and run the setup script.
• Keep yourself busy for a while...

One of the problems I ran into was the lack of support for long file names when using Windows setup scripts. So I had to build a rename table (in the setup file), which renames all short names back to their original names. Even the latest version of syssetup.dll (in XP) can't handle long filenames without problems!

Contacting the Author

Please send any comments or bug reports to me via email. For any updates to this article, check my site here.

Revision history

• 22th May 2002 - Initial revision.

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lol mp4city 10:49 28 Dec '05   pablo sucks, omg Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.10/5 (4 votes) Can I register ActiveX/DLL Balkrishna Talele 1:24 15 Sep '04   Is it possible to resigetr ATL/DLL or ATL/EXE from this installer??? cheers Balkrishna Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 5.00/5 (1 vote) Re: Can I register ActiveX/DLL Pablo van der Meer 2:31 15 Sep '04   No you can't, you'll have to add that feature yourself. Or wait for the update at http://www.pablovandermeer.nl Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink XP Santangelo Angelo 22:20 6 Nov '03   Hi Pablo, I Put you another question. With windows XP the setup program does'n work. A error is found at the end of installation. Error is found on required space field ( in 2000 work fine ). At the end, the program is copied on the desktop... ( no registry info are found on the system )... You have any solution for me ? Thanks angelo Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: XP conman 5 10:09 3 Jun '05   I am also having a problem installing the install builder on my Windows XP. It tells me when I try to install that it needed associated file and I should go to the folder options. I couldn't find a way to fix what it said the problem was. Maybe someone knows how to fix it. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink MFC Static Lybrary Santangelo Angelo 23:47 16 Oct '03   Congratulation Pablo, very nice and very easy. I Would ask you if is possible put MFC Library in Static way in the Setup Program result. I Ask this because MFC42 use around 912Kb end the setup program only 200Kb. Thanks a lot Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: MFC Static Lybrary Pablo van der Meer 1:45 17 Oct '03   I can't think of a reason why you can't link setup.exe with static library. But I think everybody has the MFC42.DLL on there system by now... Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: MFC Static Lybrary Santangelo Angelo 2:22 17 Oct '03   ... NO, MFC42.dll is't found on win95/98 system. I have solved the problem compiling stub.exe with MFC statically linked and all work Fine. Thanks a lot Angelo Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink question Achim Mueller 7:49 6 May '03   Nice and easy tool... One question, is it possible to copy the files in different subdirectories? Achim Mueller Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) question shotgun 12:26 5 Sep '02   I am rather new at c and mfc and was looking through this excellent piece of work, nicely commented, i know i'll learn alot just from this, one question i can't figure out, when searching through the module for the files tag, how could i search the string backwards, looking for the last file added to the stub.exe, setup.inf, any helps really appreciated. shotgun Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: question PablovanderMeer 2:56 6 Sep '02   I guest the code fot searhing backwards will look like something like this: ... if (!ppMemoryBlock) return FALSE; // set pointer to end of memory block ptr = ppBlockEnd; int nCounter = 0; // search in memory block for string for ( ; ptr > ppMemoryBlock; ptr--) { if (nCounter < nLength) { // compare part of string if (*ptr == strTag.GetAt(nCounter)) { // this part is OK nCounter++; } else { // not good -> reset counter nCounter = 0; } } else { // found string ! // rewind pointer (do not include marker tag) for (int i=0; i < nLength; i++) ptr++; // extract last file ExtractFile(ptr, ppBlockEnd, m_strExtractFolder); // skip marker for (int j=0; j < nLength; j++) ptr--; nCounter = 0; } } Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) what about windows installer... Mario M. 15:57 2 Aug '02   Very nice tool, but today all applications should use Windows Installer in order to integrate with all Windows Management features. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.00/5 (2 votes) Re: what about windows installer... YoSilver 10:00 25 Aug '02   O-oh... those microsoft's fat monsters... Setup apis and INF files are much more neat... Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink Re: what about windows installer... Mario M. 13:52 25 Aug '02   If you don't know a setup program made with Windows Installer can be as small as 50kb . It uses a script in which is runned by windows installer, in fact is a replacement for the old setup.inf and it can be managed in a network much more easier. Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 2.00/5 (1 vote) Re: what about windows installer... JeyRun 2:24 27 Nov '02   Mario M. wrote: a setup program made with Windows Installer can be as small as 50kb MSDN: "The Microsoft® Windows® Installer is an installation and configuration service that ships as part of the Microsoft Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me) operating systems, and is provided in a service pack to Windows 95, Windows 98, and Microsoft Windows NT® version 4.0." Therefore, in order to make Windows 9x/NT/2000 compatible installation, you have to insert into your installation package "Windows Installer Redistributables" that cost together more than 3 MB. It is a bit too much for a 100 KB program Windows Installer Redistributable for Windows 95, 98, and Me Windows Installer 2.0 Redistributable for Windows NT 4.0 and 2000 Sign In·View Thread·PermaLink 1.67/5 (4 votes)

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