bobbycim
27th September 2010 21:08 UTC

Should be simple, but...
  I am pretty much clueless when it comes to scripting.

Here is what I am trying to do:

I have 5 different software installations of different products that I am trying to condense into a single installer package to increase user-friendliness of the installation. Most of them are just single .exe or .msi files, but a couple have more files involved. All I really need to do is wrap all of these packages up into an exe file, and when the end user runs it, have it copy these installation files into a temporary folder on their machine and run a batch file that will install all of them one after another. Not sure if NSIS is what I need to be able to do this.

Anybody have any suggestions?

Thanks so much!

Animaether
27th September 2010 21:38 UTC

read the documentation - everything is in there.. just to give you a very basic skeleton to work with:

OutFile "c:\myInstaller.exe" /* where to save the installer you build */

Section
  SetOutPath "$TEMP" /* where to write a file on the user's machine */

  File "c:\someInstaller.exe" /* installer you're wrapping, will be written to the path set above */
  ExecWait "$TEMP\someInstaller.exe" /* execute that installer, wait for it to exist */

  File "c:\someOtherInstaller.exe"
  ExecWait "$TEMP\someOtherInstaller.exe"
SectionEnd 

>

redxii
27th September 2010 22:39 UTC

I'd use $PLUGINSDIR instead, that way the installer doesn't leave files.

Animaether
27th September 2010 22:47 UTC

can do that (call InitPluginsDir first) - the reason I stick third party installers in TEMP is that in the past, some of them allow a user to only install some features.. then the user goes to use the application, hits some feature almost immediately that needs an additional install, and the original app can't find the installer anymore (I think all of the MSI ones now copy the package to the windows installers store thing, so not an issue for those so much). Placed in $TEMP, it'll be available until the user (or some utility) clears out temporary files.

Depends on one's needs, really :)

bobbycim
28th September 2010 13:02 UTC

Thanks so much for all of the help, everyone!! :)