Hi Rex,

I've been experimenting with INNO for a little while now and have found it to be easy to understand and easy to use. To be fair to InstallShield, some of the issues people are running into, particularly with respect to updates, are really Windows Installer issues not InstallShield issues per se. But in any case there's a lot to be said for a simple approach like INNO. If you like INNO, you owe it to yourself to also download and become familiar with the ISTool companion product. I am finding that INNO itself is best for creating the installation script in the first place, and then using ISTool to update and maintain the script (like tweaking it for doing an update) makes for a great combination. You can call the INNO compiler directly from ISTool so there's no switching back and forth.

-Rick

>Hi Dave,
>
>I'd like to add my two bob's worth. I upgraded to VFP7 last year and immediately found ISE totally unacceptable to ISD's, from a cost and development effort perspective, let alone the no upgrade 'feature' which as you can see can be purchased at a price!!
>
>Why not do as I did, and go Inno. I got this freeware/shareware installation software from the web. It cost me nothing, but I was so immpressed I sent the author the $US10.00 shareware cost. The best $US10.00 I ever spent.
>
>With Inno Setup, I can do everything I need, Start Menu, Uninstall, Desktop Icons - even to setting registry items and running post-install exe's (this crashed on Win2K & XP with VFP v5 Setup Wizard). I know it's not Windows Installer but it certainly works for me. By the way, I compile my Install files in about 10 seconds on a 1.5ghtz AMD, whereas ISE took over two minutes for the same compile. Now I read in John's message that is has bugs!!
>
>Regards...Rex
>
>
>>John,
>>
>>Thanks for sharing your observations. This is very disappointing to hear, especially since I never budgeted money for an upgrade of InstallShield. The upgrade is the same price as VFP 7. Actually, is the upgrade to IS 3.54 still discounted to $250.00, or is that deal over with?
>>
>>I've been reading all the threads on InstallShield limited edition, and the bugs are not acceptable. The problem with not being able to completely uninstall previous installations is especially disturbing. Users will scream when they cannot properly uninstall an application, and this makes the developer appear less than competent (even though it isn't the developer's fault). Consumer perception is very important in this industry.
>>
>>I'm amazed that a patch has not been issued to fix the bugs. Does anyone know if Microsoft or InstallShield has any plans for releasing a fix for this very buggy version of InstallShield? Most of us depend on being able to professionally and successfully install our VFP applications. I just don't understand why a patch or some kind of service pack has not yet been issued to correct the problems. I was going to spend the money to upgrade from VFP 6 to 7, but now I have to spend an additional $250.00 or more to replace a deployment system that will not work correctly? This just doesn't seem fair.
>>
>>John, thanks again for the information.
>>
>>Dave
>>
>>
>>>Dave
>>>
>>>What appears to happen is that after a certain number of alterations, the project becomes unstable and random features, e.g. all your help files or various support files, fail to install when you run the MSI file.
>>>
>>>Not only can you see that you have included them in the project's Installshield Window, but you can look inside the Data.cab file (with Winzip) and see that your files _are_ there. (If you don't compress the output, you ca see them directly.)
>>>
>>>I haven't worked out a pattern - if any - to this. ISE 4.0 is in beta and I am going to have a go with this. Installshield say ISE 3.54, the current version, does not suffer from the problem described, only the ISE Limited Edition.
>>>
>>>John Burton
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi John,
>>>>
>>>>I kind of jumbled my words in my last reply. I meant to ask: Does VFP's edition of InstallShield drop features at random, or is this problem specific to particular features?
>>>>