Karel Maèl
9th March 2005 08:51 UTC

features of NSIS
Dear Sir,

I have got the task in our firm to find an installer for us. There are many products and I have not found satisfying information on home pages so I would like to ask you for filling in the table (Word) I am sending you. The table contains functions the installer that we will choose should have. I hope the filling this table in will not take you much time. If your product is freeware I will still be more grateful. If your product is commercial I can ensure you that if we choose your product we will like to buy it.

Please excuse me if I have contacted you already.

Best regards,

Karel Maèl, firm CCA, Pilsen, Czech Republic

Afrow UK
9th March 2005 15:55 UTC

I looked at your list and read all your points...

Operating system support (what it runs during packing)
?

Operating system support (what it runs during installation)
?

parameter installation (to ask user during installation, e.g. in what directory to install)
Yes

installation packing according to choice of appropriate configuration file (there will be one configuration file for each our product, that is possibility to create a set of configuration files and then only to choose according to which file the installation shall be made)
This should be possible

possibility of configuration file editation „by hand“ (e.g. in Notepad)
NSIS script language is pure text

limits (possible limits of installation volume, number of files, etc.) {our distribution has approximately hundreds MB}
2GB limit (due to Win 9x)

mask support (asterisk convention- when I want to copy e.g. files *.dll and I need not name them)
Yes

support of directory recursive processing (when I want e.g. to copy the directory APL and everything that the directory contains)
Yes

possibility to start external programs – e.g. sqlplus (synchronic (installation stops and waits for the completing of external programs) and asynchronic (it does not wait for completing of programs))
Yes; Exec, ExecShell, ExecWait, nsExec plugin etc

creation of user dialogues (these are various reports and communication)
Yes; InstallOptions plugin

possibility of different reaction of product installation according to some parameters (customer, installated version) – e.g. to install various files according to a customer code
Yes

possibility to delete files during installation (also files that are not part of installation – e.g. from the previous version of the product (application))
Yes

protocol creation of installation course (log file from installation)
Yes

protocol creation of distribution packing (report from distribution packing)
This will be possible, but you’d need to create some custom function to do it (on compile-time)

e-mail and Internet support (e.g. to send a log file from installation)
You can use FTPPlugin

installation dividing in more parts if installation is longer than medium type (CD, DVD, www; the fixed file length)
Would have to be done manually

file control during installation writing (if the older/ newer file name is the same, detection/possibility of reaction in the case of file locking (when the file is open), setting of file attributes, …)
Yes

summer/winter time support (possibility to ignore one hour difference between the files)
More info?

Possibility of install away (to return to the state before the installation was done when there is a installation mistake, that is to delete the result of installation, but to restore the original state)
No built-in support, but this is possible

Possibility to change the user interface (colours and logo of our firm)
Yes

support of long file names
Yes

support of Czech spelling in file and directory names
Not sure, but it should work

to fix big and small letters in file and directory names (we will be interested in it mainly during distribution of Java programs)
If you mean to convert file names to lower case, then yes

possibility to functional enlarge (existence of inner programming language?)
That’s the main feature of NSIS… It’s a programming language in its own right

native archive support (ability to pack/unpack common archives without external archive maker) – ARJ, RAR, CAB, ZIP, etc.
Not built in; command-line utility would have to be used

possibility to start installation at the customer’s from instruction line (+ possibility to pass parameters on from instruction line)
Yes

ability to create self – startable CD (creation of installation and files that will start installation automatically after having been written in CD)
Do manually by creating an autorun.ini file

support of work with registers Windows
Yes

possibility to read information from files on disk during installation (e.g. for control of installed product version according to records in files .ini)
Yes

control of installation consistence (CRC?), best of all immediately after installation starts (installation should be stopped immediately at the beginning if there is a mistake in writing in CD or in medium etc.)
Yes; default behaviour

possibility to create self – unpacking file with suffix *.exe (secondary, primary e.g. setup.exe and packed data should be separately)
As default, files are packed inside the setup.exe, but if stored outside; again you’d have to use a command-line utility to decompress them