Creating a very EASY TO USE installer

[SteveLord]

I recently started working here at Iowa's Board of Medicine as their new IT guy. One of my major responsibilities is prepping DVDs for the board of physicians to use in their meetings. I need to simplify the current process so anyone familiar with such a thing, please help me out if you can.

-Adobe PDFs are used. They are prepared and linked together by other personnel

-They are given to me and I am to burn them onto DVD(s) to be used on a laptop projector.

-They have to be encrypted/secured. Right now, Winzip 10.0 is used for that.

-It has to be able to install and run in a VERY EASY fashion. Doctors are some of the least technical people out there.

-Batch files are what's used right now to create an autorun, install menu and to unzip and extract the files where they need to go + create a shortcut icon on the desktop. This is a VERY long process especially if extra information is submitted to board officials. Could involve extra commands for deleting old stuff and then adding new stuff. Plus remember these are all PDFs that have to link to eachother when they go into their Table of Contents and click other documents from that.

Is there any nifty programs or methods out there that can simplify this dramatically? Remember, since this is confidential info...it has to be secured in a some manner also.

Thanks!

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IT Admin
Iowa Board of Medicine

 

[sggaunt]

Have you considered one of the Installer programs available.
I use one called Inno Setup (which is a free application) to make installers for my executables.

Install shield is another but that's not free.

This type of thing will create your desktop icons and provide the user with a step by step install. (You don't have to have any steps just install).
The interface has a wizard which lets you pick which files should be included and where they should be installed.
However to get the full power of this sort of thing its best to be able to write your own scripts, I don't think there is any way around this if you want plenty of flexibility.

Do you know how to create a Setup.ini file so your CD/DVD will auto boot?


Steve: N.M.N.F.
If something is popular, it must be wrong: Mark Twain

 

[SteveLord]

My predecessor has some Autorun.inf files from previous discs still left here. He had trouble explaining the whole process to me and I honestly had trouble concentrating on it because it is kind of annoying having to screw around with multiple batch files all day long.

I think I can try to at least eliminate WinZip from the process as we have some CD encryption software for another purpose that I might just use for this one.

I have little experience with batches, but I know there is a host of info out there on the net for using them. But honestly, I'd prefer to skip out on em if possible.

I did download InnoCD the other night and only messed with it for a few minutes. Maybe I'll dive into that more today.




----------
IT Admin
Iowa Board of Medicine

 

[sggaunt]

Opps that should have been an .inf file to make the disk autoboot and I missed the zip bit.

I think Inno can handle .zip files but not at a basic level so you would have to study this a bit. might be worth it though.
Creating a setup file [autorun.inf] is easy if you have created an installer execuatble

You can edit it with notepad. and there only need to be 2 or 3 lines one [optional] lists the icon name so the Disk will have its own icon in Windows.
the other lists the setup execuable.

e.g.
[autorun]
OPEN=setup.EXE
ICON=2s5.ICO



Steve: N.M.N.F.
If something is popular, it must be wrong: Mark Twain

 

[SteveLord]

Looks like Inno will let me password the installs...which is what WinZip was doing for us. So I think this might work.

Looks like I really do have to play with it for a while to get the scripting down.


----------
IT Admin
Iowa Board of Medicine

 

[TonHu]

Be aware that the password protection of Inno Setup is not nearly as strong as the WinZip one.
If this is just to whee away the casual abuser, then Inno will do fine, but if it's sensitive data, than I'd still go for the WinZip encryption, or some other protection tool. That can still be combined using Inno to do the mere installation tasks, and finally running some WinZip commands to unpack the password protected files, using the winzip commandline add-on. (I just assume it supports unpacking password protected zipfiles, didn't check though). Both WinZip and the commandline add-in should be installed on the target machine ofcourse, but you could check for that during installation, and install them silently from Inno Setup if the're not there.

HTH
TonHu

 

[SteveLord]

Yes we use WinZip command line and batch files right now.

----------
IT Admin
Iowa Board of Medicine

 

[linney]

Repackaging Applications For Distribution

http://www.appdeploy.com/articles/repack.asp

WinInstall.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;257718

WinInstall LE

http://www.wininstall.com/freele.asp

IEXPRESS.EXE, a native XP utility.
Type Start, Run, CMD,
iexpress

Command-line switches for IExpress software update packages

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=197147

IExpress Batch-mode Setup Switches

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/ie/ieak/techinfo/deploy/60/en/iexpswit.mspx?mfr=true

BCASTNER: Do you recall
thread779-1255425

Using Group Policy to Deploy Applications

http://www.windowsnetworking.com/articles_tutorials/Group-Policy-Deploy-Applications.html

 

[BadBigBen]

AutoRun Pro

http://www.longtion.com/autorunpro/autorunpro.htm

Autorun Magick Studio

http://www.photoactions.com/ams/

1st AutoRun Express

http://www.autoruntools.com/express/

Actual Installer

http://www.actualinstaller.com/

Agentix Installer

http://www.aginstaller.com/installer.php

CDMenuPro - Autorun CD Menu Creator

http://www.cdmenupro.com/

just a few...

Ben

"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."