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Dialog development
Using the dialog designer you can customize setup dialogs and design new ones from scratch. InstallAware 2005 ships with a pre-built collection of twelve setup themes. Having controls on your windows interact with one another is fairly easy: just double-click any control to bring up the Object Rules editor. This editor lets you visually configure how controls respond to state changes of other controls on the same window.

Plug-Ins
InstallAware ships with several pre-built plug-ins that perform various tasks, and also includes two plug-in templates for plug-ins implemented using the Visual C++ and Delphi programming languages. You may develop your own plug-ins in any environment capable of creating standard Win32 DLLs. Beyond developing your own plug-ins, some InstallAware licenses permit you to redistribute the automation libraries, so you can build installers directly on end-user systems as a feature of your own application.

Repackaging
InstallAware 2005 includes a new wizard called PackageAware. PackageAware is a standard before/after snapshot repackager that may be used to convert legacy installations (that were built without InstallAware and/or Windows Installer technology) to a Windows Installer installation. It works by scanning the system before and after an application is installed. It then compares those two scans and encapsulates the delta in an InstallAware installation project that you may further customize as needed.

Web Media Blocks
The Web Media Blocks feature allows for web deployment and partial web deployment. The latter option here is a unique one- InstallAware allows splitting the data contained inside a setup package into multiple online and offline parts. While web deployment traditionally involves putting the entire setup online, this allows you to choose which parts of their setup are to be downloaded, and which are to be provided with the main setup program. This can obviously save time and bandwidth not only for end users installing the applications, but also for companies hosting the downloads.

Compression
InstallAware 2005 includes a tool called the MSI CAB Decompressor, which you can use to repack the installation databases provided as merge modules or prerequisite MSIs by extracting the already compressed files and recompressing them with InstallAware’s own enhanced compression algorithm (LZMA/BCJ2).

Patching
InstallAware 2005 introduces a “one-click patching feature”. To use one-click patching, you need only include its latest set of files in your setup as before. Then, add the installers for the previous versions of your package to your project as Patch References. The created patches contain the absolute minimum data and files that are required to upgrade your old versions to the newest version. It accomplishes this by taking binary/differential scans of the files in your different versions, and examining them. Only the changes between the different versions are included in the patch.

If you take a look at an InstallAware MSI with another viewer/editor such as ORCA, you will see that each component is configured as its own conditional feature. The script sets properties to control the installation of items. It is this method that lets InstallAware perform some of its magic. However, keep in mind that if you are using other MSI tools such as Package Studio or AdminStudio in your environment, InstallAware packages may not be viewed normally (listing items feature by feature as they do). This could be an issue for those using conflict management tools or QA tools such as PackageCleaner which are confused by the complex nature of InstallAware packages.

Error Free MSI Packages
Here is one claim I was a bit disappointed with.  Having worked with several other repackaging and authoring tools, I know it is almost a certainty that they will not pass all ICE validation checks. The errors encountered are most always acceptable and do not impact deployment, however seeing so many errors in repackaged and vendor provided MSI packages starts you thinking that creating one that passes certification without manual steps may be impossible - unfortunately that assumption remains true.

InstallAware claims to create MSI packages that do not contain ICE errors, but in my repackaged setup, I did find a several ICE errors (mostly warnings) including 5, 30, 40, 57, 60, 66, 82, 84. Most were just warnings and the resulting MSI functioned just fine, but the promise of an "error-free package" was not delivered.

Shelling to other MSI files
A nice feature worth mention: when seen interactively, any shelled MSI setups are accounted for in the progress bar presented to the user.

Closing
In the end, InstallAware provides several powerful features found no place else. Its intuitive scripting capabilities are unparalleled and the ability to host infrequently needed features of your setup online alone makes it worth a closer look. You can obtain a trial/evaluation version of InstallAware at: http://www.installaware.com 

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