Create a simple installer using NSIS
Posted by vishu2125 on June 15, 2008
NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) is a professional open source system to create Windows installers.Many plug-ins and scripts are already available: you can create web installers, communicate with Windows and other software components, install or update shared components and more.
List of features: This article explain how to create an installer using NSIS:
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/install/CreatingAnInstaller.aspx
Product URL :
http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Main_Page
- Generates self-contained executable installers
- Support for ZLib, BZip2 and LZMA data compression (files can be compressed individually or together)
- Uninstall support (installer can generate an uninstaller)
- Customizable user interface (dialogs, fonts, backgrounds, icons, text, checkmarks, images etc.)
- Classic and Modern wizard interface
- Fully multilingual, support for multiple languages (including RTL languages) in one installer. More than 40 translations are already available, but you can also create your own.
- Page system: You can add standard wizard pages or custom pages
- User selection of installation components, tree for component selection
- Multiple install configurations (usually Minimal, Typical, Full), and custom configuration
- Installer self-verification using a CRC32 checksum
- Small overhead over compressed data size (34 KB with default options)
- Ability to display a license agreement in text or RTF format
- Ability to detect destination directory from the registry
- Easy to use plug-in system (lots of plug-ins for creation of custom dialogs, internet connections, HTTP downloading, file patching, Win32 API calls, etc. are included)
- Installers can be as large as 2GB
- Optional silent mode for automated installations
- A preprocessor with support for defined symbols, macros, conditional compilation, standard predefines
- A lovely coding experience with elements of PHP and assembly (includes user variables, a stack, real flow control, etc.)
- Installers have their own VMs that let you write code that can support:
- File extraction (with configurable overwrite parameters)
- File/directory copying, renaming, deletion, searching
- Plug-in DLL calling
- DLL/ActiveX control registration/unregistration
- Executable execution (shell execute and wait options)
- Shortcut creation
- Registry key reading/setting/enumerating/deleting
- INI file reading/writing
- Generic text file reading/writing
- Powerful string and integer manipulation
- Window finding based on class name or title
- User interface manipulation (font/text setting)
- Window message sending
- User interaction with message boxes or custom pages
- Branching, comparisons, etc.
- Error checking
- Reboot support, including delete or rename on reboot
- Installer behavior commands (such as show/hide/wait/etc.)
- User functions in script
- Callback functions for user actions
- Completely free for any use. See License.
