radiosoft
8th November 2005 12:01 UTC

Decrease installation creation time for multiple installations
We have several installation packages which have base (non changeable) files and several small individual files for each installation.
Each client wants to see his logo and license text in the distribution package, but all exe and other files are the same for all.
When using Compression On (especially lzma) - MakeNSis application works too long (about an hour or so) to create all individual installations.

THE QUESTION
Is it possible to prepare pre-compressed data files which won't be compressed during install creation process but certainly be decompressed on installation process using installer decompress functionality?

May be someone has any other suggestion how to manage with such multiple installations.

Animaether
8th November 2005 13:17 UTC

I don't know if what you're asking is possible... but might it be feasible to compile a generic installer once - and then use something like Resource Hacker's command-line functionality in a batch setup to create copies of the generic installer, and modify the resources within ?

Pidgeot
8th November 2005 16:23 UTC

You can compress them prior to creating the installer, and then include an appropriate extractor in the installer, which you'll compile with no compression. Extract both things to a temporary directory and run the extractor to put the files where they need to be.

If you distribute your software on a CD or similar, you could optionally choose to just have the compressed file on there directly, and only have the extractor in the installer.

radiosoft
9th November 2005 07:06 UTC

Now I'm using external decompressor (lzma) to unpack files.
But NSIS already has built-in decompressor and I wanted to use it. :-)

Pidgeot
9th November 2005 09:48 UTC

In that case, you'd have to take a similar approach and make ONE installer, which you then pacakge into a different one.

The principle is the same, so you should be able to figure it out. :)