Distributing on CD for Windows users

Edwin Gore edgore at shinra.com
Fri Aug 22 13:52:01 EDT 2003


If you are going to write your own installer, it should be possible to use Rev's built in Gzip compression to get around this problem. Use Rev (or gzip) to compress your application files, put them and a simple unzipper stack onto the CD, then users just run the unzipper program to install.

I have been using Pantaray's QSetup for creating Windows installers is , which is free for independant developers.

I'm not familiar with any of the installation makers for the Mac unfortunately.

>----- ------- Original Message ------- -----
>From: Barry Levine <themacguy at macosx.com>
>To: use-revolution at lists.runrev.com
>Sent: Fri, 22 Aug 2003 12:19:22
>
>I've run into that killer "read-only" problem where
>I've burned a CD 
>with the Rev distribution and then copied the files
>and app back to a 
>PC hard disk only to find that the files (which
>could be written to on 
>the original PC) are unusable (because I can't save
>to them anymore). 
>Note that this is not the "can't write to the app's
>mainstack" issue 
>(which is not an issue when you understand how to
>deal with it).
>
>I remember some discussion about this on the list
>but a search hasn't 
>revealed the definitive answer.
>
>However, I have tried something which seems to work
>fine and I'd like 
>to run it by the listas for a second (and third)
>opinion:
>
>I am using DropZip (part of the Stuffit Deluxe
>package on my Mac) to 
>compress the distribution folder into an archive
>and burn that archive 
>to the CD. Then, moving to the PC, I open that
>archive using the WinZip 
>program (or whatever it is on XP that can open that
>zip file) and drag 
>the application folder from the zip file to the
>user's Desktop.
>
>I realize that I can't do this manually for every
>user (as we hope to 
>sell this program to lots of people) so I will have
>to use whatever 
>automatic installer is recommended. I also have
>found that a W2K PC 
>into which we had attempted to install the program
>had nothing on it 
>that could deal with the zip file so I need to
>include some kind of 
>"unzipping" engine. So, two questions:
>
>1. Is the process I describe an good method of
>dealing with the 
>read-only problem? (If not, I will entertain
>alternatives.)
>
>2. Would the proper long-term solution be something
>like "Install 
>anywhere"? I plan to distribute to both Macs and
>PCs.
>
>The users who would be purchasing the program are
>K12 teachers who, as 
>we all know, can not be relied upon to manage a
>geeky installation.
>
>Thanks very much.
>
>Barry
>
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