Free Setup Utilities / Installers / Uninstallers

Free Setup Utilities / Installers / Uninstallers Spoon Installer Spoon Installer is an open source Windows setup utility released under the BSD licence. It creates a single compressed setup executable file for your applications. Nullsoft Install System (Scriptable) Nullsoft provides a free scriptable installer that you can use to package your applications. The installer only adds 20-40k of overhead to your distributable file. It can compress your files with zip or bzip2, register ActiveX controls (and deregister them as well), run another executable, call DLLs, create shortcuts, set registry entries, find windows that are open (for example, to detect whether an existing version of your application is currently running), flow control, etc. Inno Setup A Win16 and Win32 installer that can create self-extracting SETUP executables. It can also install an uninstaller for your application files. One nice feature about this program is that you can generate your distribution files from either a GUI IDE or from the command line (useful for those using makefiles to automate development). The Setup file created is extremely small. The program also supports disk-spanning, useful for all of you who have applications that span many floppy disks. Source code for the installer is available. Development is ongoing, and there is support for other languages. You may use the installer for both commercial and non-commercial programs, free of charge. GP-Install A Win32 installer that can create self-extracting SETUP programs. One useful feature of this installer is that you can actually extend its facilities by adding your own EXE or DLL extensions (to both the installer and uninstaller). It is able to self-register ActiveX and COM controls. It looks like it does not use any script files nor does it support the command line interface - you must use the supplied GUI configuration program. You may use the installer for both commercial and non-commercial programs, free of charge. GKSetup GKSetup can create self-extracting SETUP programs and has a built in uninstaller. There is a GUI IDE that allows you to easily create the Setup programs. Some downsides to this installer include: you can only use it with free programs; I tested an earlier version of this installer some time back and found that when setting up your program on the user's machine, information about GkSetup is displayed prominently in almost every screenful with information on how to download GkSetup. In fact screen space is sacrificed for this advertisement when displaying your application's README.TXT file, so that you virtually have to format your documentation 50 characters per line for it to appear correctly! HJ-Install This is a Win32 installer without an uninstaller. Documentation for the version I checked suggests that it cannot create self-extracting executables. Install Creator Install Creator is another Windows installer that you can distribute with your program. It creates a single distribution executable for your program that can handle things like creating icons and folders in the user's Start Menu, installation and deinstallation of DLLs, ActiveX controls, fonts, screen savers, etc. It comes with an uninstaller (deinstaller), etc. It claims that it only adds 60Kb to your program, which compares very favourably to many other installers. The free version may be used with commercial and non-commercial products, and includes an advertisement page after installing (but not with your program itself). QuickInstall A Win32 installer that allows you to add keys to the registry and supports more than one language. I have little other information about this installer. Sly Installer This is a Win32 setup program that is designed for people who burn their own CDROMs and want an installer for that CDROM. You edit your own setup script. There is no support for generating self-extracting SETUP files, nor is there an uninstaller.