Inno Setup
 | |
|
Screenshot of the Inno Setup IDE running on Windows 7 | |
| Developer(s) | Jordan Russell and Martijn Laan |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 1997 |
| Stable release |
5.5.9
/ April 6, 2016 |
| Written in | Delphi |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Type | Setup Creator |
| License | Modified BSD license[1] |
| Website |
jrsoftware |
Inno Setup is a free software[1] script-driven installation system created in Delphi by Jordan Russell. The first version was released in 1997.
History
Since Jordan Russell wasn't satisfied with InstallShield Express which he had received upon purchase of Borland Delphi, he decided to make his own installer.[2] At first, Inno Setup was little known. The first public version was 1.09..
To make an installation package with version 1.09, an “ISS.TXT” file needed to be created in the installation directory. In the file, the user needed to supply variables and values which are still used in Inno Setup today. These variables served as the configuration of the installation package but many other features could not be changed. The installation compiler had no editor and was more of a shell to compile scripts.
Throughout Inno Setup's development, it was becoming more widely used. Since Inno Setup was and still is free and open source, many software companies started switching to the open source solution in software installation. Since Inno Setup was based around scripting, fans of Inno Setup started ISTool and ScriptMaker to aid in visual and simpler ways to make installations for Inno Setup.
Inno Setup has won many awards including the Shareware Industry Awards three times in a row - from 2002 to 2004.
Many people have taken Inno Setup source code and used it to develop third-party versions of Inno Setup. An example is My Inno Setup Extensions by Martijn Laan, which has been incorporated into Inno Setup in June 2003.
Features
Key features
- Supports Windows 2000 and later[3]
- Extensive support for installation of 64-bit applications on Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Both the x64 and IA-64 architectures are supported.
- Multiple platforms (IA-32, x64 and IA-64) in a single binary
- Prior versions supported Windows 9x and Windows NT 4.0 (before 5.5.0), Windows NT 3.51 (before v3.0) and Windows 3.X (Before v1.3)
- Supports creation of a single EXE to install programs for easy online distribution.
- Supports disk spanning.
- Customizable setup types, for example, Full, Minimal, and Custom.
- Complete uninstall capabilities.
- Integrated support for “deflate”, bzip2, and 7-Zip LZMA file compression. The installer has the ability to compare file version information, replace in-use files, use shared file counting, register DLL/OCXs and type libraries, and install fonts.
- Creation of shortcuts, including in the Start Menu and on the desktop.
- Creation of registry and INI file entries.
- Integrated Pascal scripting engine.
- Support for multilingual installs.
- Support for passworded and encrypted installs.
- Silent install and uninstall.
- Full source code is available (Borland Delphi 2.0-5.0 and 2009).
- Supports Unicode and right-to-left languages.[4]
See also
References
- 1 2 "Inno Setup License". JRSoftware.org. 7 January 2016.
- ↑ Why was it created?
- ↑ "About Inno Setup". JRSoftware.org.
- ↑ "Inno Setup change log". JRSoftware.org. Retrieved 18 January 2010.
External links
- Official website
- Inno Setup on GitHub
- The Inno Setup Extensions Knowledge Base
- Inno Setup Review by Dave Murray - An extensive review of Inno Setup
- Lexpa ISVS - Inno Setup add-in for Visual Studio
- OpenCandy Installer Platform Comparison June 2011