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Inno Setup is free installer builder for Windows that can quickly create a setup file. According to the developer, it rivals and even surpasses many commercial installers in feature set and stability. It can create a single EXE file, for easier distribution over the Internet. Apart from it’s basic functionalities, it supports disk spanning, can create Start Menu icons, INI entries, and registry entries, integrates file compression, and much more.Inno Setup Scripts are arranged into sections. Each section controls a different aspect of the installation. A section is started by specifying the name of the section enclosed in square brackets []. Inside each section is any number of entries.
Key features of Inno Setup
- Support for all modern versions of Microsoft Windows – 95, NT 4.0, 98, 2000, Me, XP, Server 2003, XP 64-bit, XP Professional and Vista . (No service packs are required.)
- Extensive support for installation of 64-bit applications on the 64-bit editions of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Both the x64 and Itanium architectures are supported.
- Prior versions supported 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, e.g. Full, Minimal, Custom.
- Complete uninstall capabilities.
- Integrated support for “deflate”, bzip2, and 7-Zip LZMA file compression. The installer has the ability to compare file version info, 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 entries.
- Integrated Pascal scripting engine.
- Support for multilingual installs.
- Support for passworded and encrypted installs.
- Silent install and uninstall.
- Full source code is available
In this tutorial, deployment of a project is explained using a simple Inno Setup example.
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