Index:
- What is InnoSetup?
- How does it Work?
- Example Setup Programs
- Getting InnoSetup
- Learning InnoSetup
- Further Information
What is InnoSetup?
InnoSetup is a tool for packaging the parts of your project and creating a standard Windows setup/uninstall program out of them. It supports a vast array of features and compression options. It allows you to enter items into the registry, create start menu shortcuts, download files from the Internet as part of the setup routine and much more! Some of it's most important features are that setup programs generated with it are accessible and royalty-free (InnoSetup itself is free for home and commercial use).
You can create as simple or complicated a setup program as you like; all the power-user features (such as components, conditional setup tasks, Internet setup) are included but you can use as many or few of them as you like. You can also include the setup of run-time components such as SAPI as part of the installation of your programs.
How does it Work?
InnoSetup at its most basic level is a compiler for setup scripts. You can write these manually, or use a friendly GUI program to create them for you. You're best to get the InnoSetup Quick Start bundle as it comes with all sorts of extras that you will find helpful.
Example Setup Programs
The AGRIP setup programs for Windows are built with InnoSetup. Feel free to test them out for an example of what the system can do. Because of restrictions on distributing SAPI, we have to provide a few different versions of the setup program. This demonstrates a very powerful feature of InnoSetup -- the ability to use a preprocessor to make slight alterations to what's included in your installer. We've got one standard setup script and by simply turning on/off some #defines, we can easily create all of the required "flavours" of setup program from it.
You can find our installers at ![[WWW]](/wiki/agdev/img/moin-www.png){kind=small}
http://www.agrip.org.uk/DownloadPage and you can see the source code of them at http://www.agrip.org.uk/svn/trunk/setup.iss. It is licenced under the GPL so you probably won't want to copy the code directly, but it should give you a few ideas.
Getting InnoSetup
Go to
http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php. Here you'll find a description of all of the features of the program so you can see if it is suitable for your needs. Download the Quick Start bundle from
http://www.jrsoftware.org/isdl.php#qsp Install and enjoy! Check out ISTool as this is the GUI program that will provide help in the setup creation process.
Learning InnoSetup
The Windows Help files for InnoSetup and the GUI ISTool, which I recommend you try, are excellent references. Couple this with the many example setup scripts that are included and you should be off to a good start.
Further Information
There's a lot more to InnoSetup than I've been able to explain here. I hope this has provided a good starting point. If there are any additions you'd like to make here, go ahead. If there are any questions you have, please contact MatthewTyleeAtkinson and I'll try to get the answers displayed here.