I haven't seen the final installation, but the product itself installs very nicely. No guarrantee they use there own for install, though. :) From what I've seen of it, it does quite a bit. I'm pretty sure it allows for uninstalling.

The software has some competition, but not a lot. It's scheduling/routing/billing for paratransit companies. Right now we install it by hand, just copying over the files. For the VFP stuff, I ran the VFP installer program on an empty directory and I just run that setup. I'd like to make it so they can just put in the disks and everything installs. That way we won't have to install it for everyone.

I don't know what you mean about the data? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,

-Michelle


>I don't know about SS, but there are one or two things I would look at if I were trying out a cheap intaller. Does it register your application properly so that it can be removed from Control Panel - Add/Remove Programs? That is one essential thing the vfp setup wizard doesn't do, which by itself makes it unacceptable for a professional installation. If the software is very specialized, has no competition, and a very small client base, the vendor can get away with some half-assed shortcuts. That's particularly true if the clients are old scientists, who don't care about having the latest thing and never have any money anyway.
>
>I squint and furrow my eyebrows at cheap installers because the last time I looked at them was in the bad old win3.1 days when many people had no idea how a windows-based installer should work but were still creating them. Many of them were cheap shareware. Even PC-Install, the next most popular after Install Shield, was buggy and crude a couple of years ago. It used its own compression. It couldn't compress files and span disks in one step the way ol' PKZip has always done. 20/20 Software, makers of PC-Install, was slow to adapt to Win95, as I recall. PC-Install is probably much better now, and might be worth a look.
>
>Since the name is Tripsoft, are your customers Travel Agents? Some of your more detailed questions gave me some idea of what the software does, but I'm not sure. My brother is a travel agent. I wonder what comparable programs he uses.
>
>I'm always more cagey about what my data is, since I work for a defense contractor. I always call my tables "things", "documents", "locations", not saying what they really are.
>
>>Michelle,
>>
>>Since this has gotten completely off-track I thought I would try to answer your original question. I've found that creating a setup with the VFP setup wizard is the easiest way to find out what you need to install. Look in the setup.inf it creates. You can double-click a file in Setup Specialist to tell it where to install it (app dir, win dir, win sys dir, etc). This is also where you can tell it to register an OCX or DLL.
>>
>>I think Setup Specialist is a good deal. It probably can't do everything Installshield can do, but if you just need some basic setup cabability it's much better than the VFP setup wizard.
>>
>>It sounds like part of the reason your employer is reluctant to spend money to save your time is that he's underpaying you. Maybe it's time to look for a new job?
>>
>>>Has anybody used this with VFP? I'm wondering how I get it to setup the stuff VFP needs. I also need to install 2 active-x controls.
>>>
>>>Using this isn't set in stone. If it's a bad product, please let me know. Or tell me if there's something better that's as cheap. I picked it because I didn't like the VFP one and InstallShield is too expensive. We haven't bought it yet, though, so my options are still open.
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>
>>>-Michelle