The Visual View

You'll see right away that the IDE is excellent, both simple and nice to look at. The layout is logical and similar to other setup authoring tools.

I did find the file view a bit hard to navigate as it shows all the folder properties as they would be referenced in the MSIcode view, for example: $TARGETDIR$ is where most of my files will typically go. While I liked this approach, I did find it hard to find my files with so many empty folders present in the tree. While it was helpful that the tree appeared fully expanded by default, an option to hide those folders that do not include current file references would be welcome here. The registry view was similar, but with actual registry paths instead of property names, there were far less folders in the tree to examine.

Ever messed with custom actions to run an executable at some point during the installation? It is not a trivial task and takes some learning to get comfortable with, but even those that think they know custom actions quite well will be happy to have this little gem at their disposal. As an Advanced Option you have the ability to easily specify an executable you want to run, you can run it before install, after install, before uninstall, after uninstall or from the finish dialog- and it is as easy as one simple form (click here for screen shot).

Still not impressed? How about handling driver installations? This is another task that can prove a time-consuming and painful operation and it is another that InstallAware offers a single simple dialog to address. An example of the results was demonstrated in the DIFx Driver Install sample project, but actually performing the task in your MSI is just about as easy as it gets. Editing security? You can very easily set security on files, folders, shares, registry keys, services and printers with the "Set Access Control" feature (click here for screen shot; where you can also see the helpful callouts that are presented to help you as you work).

Even things you may have not even thought about doing with your setup are included like Scheduled Tasks which allows you to configure tasks to run on the target system using Windows Task Scheduler as part of your setup. You can use Authenticode Signatures to sign your setup executables. You can employ something called “Web Media Blocks” which allow you to build a self contained installation which can obtain required runtimes from the Internet as part of the download (if they are unavailable). The list goes on and on!

There is also something InstallAware refers to as Creatives which are setup elements that allow you to add a bitmap to display as a splash screen during setup initialization. You can even add an html file to provide interactive content while the installation takes place. As an admin, you may not need these features, but you cannot deny they are cool capabilities; you can even add flash content for the user to see (and even interact with) during installation.

InstallAware also includes an update client, which I sometimes find annoying, but in this case it is very easy to disable and if you want to keep up to date- the interface and options match Windows Update almost exactly so there is no learning curve and configuring it is very simple. Running as a service, it does request a username and password when first configured. If you like it too, you may be happy to hear that this is actually a feature of InstallAware that you can take advantage of in your own setups (at no extra charge).

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