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[Jim Allman <jim AT ibang.com>]

On Thursday, September 4, 2003, at 12:03  PM, Don Rua wrote:
> I'm looking for someone who can answer questions regarding desktop 
> software install packages, pros and cons. We are currently using 
> Windows installer, but are interested in moving to InstallShield or 
> WISE. Our lead developer would love to talk with someone that has 
> experience with install issues/packages for desktop software, (for 
> Windows user machines). If anyone can help personally, or point to 
> good resources, please let me or John Ramsey know.

Don,

	I just found this old-ish message on the INW mailing list. Are you 
still looking for opinions on these installer packages? I haven't used 
them in quite a while (I'm building web apps these days), but I used 
both systems a few years ago, and they had some interesting differences.

        My general impressions at that time were:

	Both products were quite mature and had fiercely loyal users. Both 
were quite capable of doing sophisticated and flexible installations, 
with optional packages, system checks, etc. Last time I checked, both 
were aggressively adding features for online software distribution.

	InstallShield had a two-fold product strategy, with a low-end product 
(InstallShield Express?) that was very simple but very limiting. It 
used a GUI for everything (kind of a "wizard" interface) and was good 
for only the most basic installations. On the other hand, the full 
version of InstallShield was basically a mini-IDE with its own 
scripting language -- *very* deep and powerful, but not at all 
beginner-friendly, and not what I would call a beautiful language, for 
what it's worth.

	WISE Installer was built on a different philosophy, with a GUI 
environment that would take you pretty far, and direct access (on 
demand) to the underlying scripts that you were creating. This made for 
a much smoother learning curve IMO, and I chose WISE for my projects 
when possible. They also had great support. My biggest beef with WISE 
was that they were constantly pushing newer, bigger, badder versions 
that were overkill for 90% of all projects, but you had to scrutinize 
the specs pretty hard to know for sure.

	Another interesting feature of WISE (and probably InstallShield): It 
made a great authoring tool for building quick-and-dirty support 
utilities for multimedia CDs. Easy to knock out a program to test for 
and install Acrobat Viewer, or set up Registry keys, or other system 
stuff that usually isn't directly possible in Flash, Director, etc. 
Windows only, YMMV, etc. etc.

	I hope this helps, and I'd be curious to hear more recent opinions 
about installer solutions.

        =jimA=