6 ms·

Installshield as a product had... (has?) absolutely incredible incidental complexity. It's really hard to communicate the scars, if you never dealt with it, you

Installshield as a product had... (has?) absolutely incredible incidental complexity. It's really hard to communicate the scars, if you never dealt with it, you dodged a bullet. Under the next -> next -> finish you saw, was basically a fountain of tears. That software directly relished and consumed the salty tears of engineers. It demanded them as sacrifice, to make the installs keep happening. You would think that a product which did nothing but facilitate that workflow would hide, or somehow ease your pain but somehow it made it so that it never worked by default and it was your problem as "installer engineer" (aka short-straw-haver) to fix it.

self_awareness 4y ago
But it had to solve some original problem (while maybe introducing others). Otherwise it wouldn't be used? From user's POV, I've always preferred IS installers than Wise, but I haven't created any packages even once. I was always just the "next-next-finish"-type of user ;)
- badsectoracula 4y ago
  A cut down (but still very functional) version of Install Shield came bundled with Visual Studio, Delphi, C++ Builder and perhaps others (they were somewhat customized versions for each) so for many it was available out of the box. And the included version had a wizard to quickly create an installation project so unless you wanted something advanced, making an installer was a matter of selecting your program's files, the name of any Start menu shortcuts (and perhaps a couple of other things i forget) and then building the installer. For a ton of people it was more than enough. I think at the time its main "drawback" was that it made installer downloads from the internet a bit awkward since it generated tons of files, but many archiving tools (WinZip, WinRAR, etc) added options for making self-extracting archives that can launch applications, so the combo of a WinZip self-extracting archive that launches an InstallShield setup.exe was very common for a very long time. But basically the reason it was used a lot was that it was easily available to the users of the most popular development tools at the time.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pjc50 4y ago
  It made you a standard executable Windows installer. Inexplicably there wasn't a decent first-party Microsoft solution to this until the Microsoft Store era. There wasn't really effective competition, probably because it's hard to get people to pay for developer tools and it's a hard problem to do well.
  - zokier 4y ago
    Umm.. MSI has been a thing since Windows 2000, and WiX (and native support in VS) for creating those.
e40 4y ago
Ah, yes, I remember it well. The day I jumped to NSIS was a good day.
- eptcyka 4y ago
  Is NSIS really that much better?
  - e40 4y ago
    Yes, I think it is. But, it's not great. The pseudo assembler language is not great, but it was definitely easier for me to deal with, perhaps because there were lots of other people using it and sharing info.
grishka 4y ago
Probably a good thing that when I built a Windows app in 2010 and needed an installer for it, I used InnoSetup. It was surprisingly easy to get something decently working out of it. But yes, I remember that a lot of installers were InstallShield, and the thought that it might be a mess on the inside has never once crossed my mind.
- DougN7 4y ago
  InnoSetup stills works great, and is still pretty easy to work with.
octopoc 4y ago
I never messed with InstallShield but I have used NSIS (free), Wix (free), and Advanced Installer (paid). Advanced Installer is absolutely worth it in my opinion, although it still has trouble hiding the nightmare of Windows installers. NSIS syntax is a cross between PHP and assembly. Wix is literally an attempt to program a database using XML. That's three things that don't fit together well. Part of the problem is that most Windows installers are based off MSIs, and MSIs were made for MS Office by some engineers who thought relational databases were cool, so they made everything in MSI be a relational table.
PsylentKnight 4y ago
My very first tasks as a new software developer were to revamp some legacy installers created with Installshield. It made me think that I chose the wrong career path. Just about everything I've worked on since then feels easy and painless compared to that.

self_awareness 4y ago

But it had to solve some original problem (while maybe introducing others). Otherwise it wouldn't be used? From user's POV, I've always preferred IS installers than Wise, but I haven't created any packages even once. I was always just the "next-next-finish"-type of user ;)

badsectoracula 4y ago
A cut down (but still very functional) version of Install Shield came bundled with Visual Studio, Delphi, C++ Builder and perhaps others (they were somewhat customized versions for each) so for many it was available out of the box. And the included version had a wizard to quickly create an installation project so unless you wanted something advanced, making an installer was a matter of selecting your program's files, the name of any Start menu shortcuts (and perhaps a couple of other things i forget) and then building the installer. For a ton of people it was more than enough. I think at the time its main "drawback" was that it made installer downloads from the internet a bit awkward since it generated tons of files, but many archiving tools (WinZip, WinRAR, etc) added options for making self-extracting archives that can launch applications, so the combo of a WinZip self-extracting archive that launches an InstallShield setup.exe was very common for a very long time. But basically the reason it was used a lot was that it was easily available to the users of the most popular development tools at the time.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
pjc50 4y ago
It made you a standard executable Windows installer. Inexplicably there wasn't a decent first-party Microsoft solution to this until the Microsoft Store era. There wasn't really effective competition, probably because it's hard to get people to pay for developer tools and it's a hard problem to do well.
- zokier 4y ago
  Umm.. MSI has been a thing since Windows 2000, and WiX (and native support in VS) for creating those.

e40 4y ago

Ah, yes, I remember it well. The day I jumped to NSIS was a good day.

eptcyka 4y ago
Is NSIS really that much better?
- e40 4y ago
  Yes, I think it is. But, it's not great. The pseudo assembler language is not great, but it was definitely easier for me to deal with, perhaps because there were lots of other people using it and sharing info.

grishka 4y ago

Probably a good thing that when I built a Windows app in 2010 and needed an installer for it, I used InnoSetup. It was surprisingly easy to get something decently working out of it. But yes, I remember that a lot of installers were InstallShield, and the thought that it might be a mess on the inside has never once crossed my mind.

DougN7 4y ago
InnoSetup stills works great, and is still pretty easy to work with.

octopoc 4y ago

I never messed with InstallShield but I have used NSIS (free), Wix (free), and Advanced Installer (paid). Advanced Installer is absolutely worth it in my opinion, although it still has trouble hiding the nightmare of Windows installers. NSIS syntax is a cross between PHP and assembly. Wix is literally an attempt to program a database using XML. That's three things that don't fit together well. Part of the problem is that most Windows installers are based off MSIs, and MSIs were made for MS Office by some engineers who thought relational databases were cool, so they made everything in MSI be a relational table.

PsylentKnight 4y ago

My very first tasks as a new software developer were to revamp some legacy installers created with Installshield. It made me think that I chose the wrong career path. Just about everything I've worked on since then feels easy and painless compared to that.