Excelsior Installer

Two clicks package creation

Version 1.7 of the Excelsior installation products introduces  integration with Windows Explorer that allows to pack first installation package in just two mouse clicks.

To see how it looks like, watch this short demonstration.

How it works?

There are five parameters that package editor (Packager) needs to know to prepare acceptable installation:

1. company name
2. main program executable
3. product version
4. license file (optional)
5. readme file (optional)

Parameters #1-3 are needed to prepare appropriate default names for installation folder, Start Menu program group and registry key.

Optional parameters #4 and #5 are needed if you want to display license during installation and readme file after the installation is complete.

Normally these parameters are filled-in with appropriate inputs via the package editor. When you invoke package editor from Windows Explorer context menu it has to pick them up automatically.

How?

License file is a file with name "license.txt" that shall reside in your folder. If such file exists, then package editor will use it contents as license text.

Readme file is found in the same way: "readme.txt".

If you have just one executable in your folder, then this executable is selected as main. Otherwise, package editor will ask you to select one from the list.

After that, the company name with product name and version can be found. But to make it possible, you have to put special version info resource to your executable.

To know more about version info, see MSDN at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6fkzft86(VS.71).aspx.

Yes, this is a work that may seem unnecessary. But this also makes your product more respectable. Simply "mouse over" any EXE of any respectable product and you'll see that Windows can tell you about the product name, version and vendor. This is done via version info resource.

And, if your main executable does not have version info then the package editor will invoke its GUI wizard and ask you about vendor and product names and version.