Archive: Very noob help w/creating an installer for game mod


Very noob help w/creating an installer for game mod
Hey all. Looks like this installer is primarily designed with WinAmp in mind, but hopefully it'll do what I want it to do.

First of all, I'm a newbie with no scripting experience. Most of the NSIS tutorials I've found expect me to have scripting experience, so I haven't found any that actually taught me anything. :(

I'm trying to script a simple installer for my mod that's written for the game Star Trek Voyager: Elite Force. Elite Force is a game written using the Quake3 engine, so if you know the installation structure of Quake3, then you already know how Elite Force is installed. But here's what I'm trying to do...

- Have the installer get Elite Force's installation folder from the registry (I'm gonna call it 'installdir').
- Have the installer look for an upgrade file that's installed when Elite Force is upgraded to version 1.2 (file name is "installdir/baseEF/pak2.pk3"). I need that file's status to validate Elite Force's compatibility with my mod, because the installation should abort if that file's not found.
- Install two files (readme_13.txt and zpak0.pk3) into a subfolder of the installation folder (installdir/baseEF/).
- Write a registration key to indicate that the mod has been installed.
- Ability to uninstall the two mod files and delete my installation registration key.
- Pack it all up into a nice, neat install executable.

Sounds simple, but I don't have any scripting experience and I haven't found any .nsi files that I can use as examples toward scripting my installer.

Would anybody be willing to help this poor newbie reach his goal? :D Thanks in advance for the help!


NSIS is not only designed with Winamp in mind, it can be used for everything.

I recommend you to read the NSIS Users Manual. There are instructions available for everything you want.


Alrighty, I'll give that a shot... Dang. I was hoping I wouldn't have to learn another programming language, 'cause they're all starting to run together! But it sounds like it could be a pretty powerful installer for those who know how to script.

Thanks for the reply!


But it sounds like it could be a pretty powerful installer for those who know how to script
and programmer too, but you have to know how to integrate files to be worked by it too.