building a installer with rev

[Chris Sheffield]

Tiemo,

Speaking from experience, while you can certainly create your own  
installer using Rev, it ends up being a fair amount of work. You could  
save a lot of time using another installer tool.

Most installers (InnoSetup for one, and it's totally free) will allow  
you to keep your files external to the installer. In other words, you  
can opt not to compress the files, and have the installer do a simple  
copy action instead. Simply use the "external" flag. That way, your  
app could still run straight from the DVD, but you'd also have an easy  
interface for allowing the user to copy files to HD. If you're not  
familiar with InnoSetup, I recommend using ISTool, a third-party  
interface that provides a lot of extra functionality that you would  
otherwise have to script yourself.

HTH,
Chris Sheffield


On Nov 14, 2008, at 1:54 AM, Tiemo Hollmann TB wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have read the archives about this issue, but didn't found an  
> answer to my
> specific needs. Perhaps somebody can give me some advice. What I  
> want to do
> is to distribute my app on DVD-ROM for Mac and Win. It is heavily  
> based on
> Videos (7.5GB), that's why the medium is not a CD-ROM, but a double  
> layer
> DVD-9.  My app should be runable direct from DVD-ROM (on Win with
> autostart), that's why I can't have any packaged/zipped content on the
> DV-ROM. So far no problem. Now I want to supply the user that he can  
> also
> install / copy the whole app on HD to be independent of the DVD-ROM.  
> Here I
> have some open questions.
>
> On Mac:
>
> - The easiest way would be to tell the user, that he just can copy  
> the whole
> DVD-ROM into any folder on HD and that's it. I think to provide a
> "copyAll-setup" wouldn't bring much more comfort
>
> - Are there any issues, not to do this, or what the user would  
> expect coming
> along with a HD install (like a desktop alias on Win)?
>
> On Win:
>
> - All installers I have seen so far want to compress/zip the content  
> of my
> app on the medium and do an unzip while installing. Because all my  
> files
> have to be runable from DVD, they can't be compressed and I can't  
> use any
> installer (like innosetup or installgadget or stuffit) Do you know any
> installer, which just can copy the files without having them packaged
> before?
>
> So my thought was to create my own setup with rev, which just copies  
> all the
> content of my DVD to HD, I don't need any drivers, registry settings  
> or
> things like that, just a full copy.
>
> - If I would offer the user to install into the standard C:\program  
> files,
> how will Vista give me the privilege of admin rights to copy to that
> destination? I have read sometime before, that Vista just recognizes  
> a setup
> from the name "setup.exe". Is this true and sufficient? How to  
> prevent from
> being virtualized?
>
> - How can I create an alias on the desktop and startmenu to my app  
> with rev?
> Is it possible at all?
>
> - How to create an uninstall? After having deleted all my files in
> C:\programm files\ (what thinks Vista about that?), how do I delete  
> "myself"
> (the uninstall.exe) Never done such a thing before.
>
> - Are there any other issues, I haven't thought about yet and I  
> should tell
> the win user also, just to copy the DVD wherever he wants to and has  
> to care
> about it for himself?
>
> Thanks for your experience and recommendations
>
> Tiemo
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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--
Chris Sheffield
Read Naturally, Inc.
www.readnaturally.com