Developers' experience suggests that a good, professional looking software installer is extremely important for your products. Nothing creates a worse first impression than an installer which doesn't work or is hard to use. In other words, if you want your software to project a positive image before a user, you should take care of a professional and reliable installer.
With Actual Installer, the process of creating installer files becomes fantastic ease. It usually takes less than five minutes for a beginner to get started with the first installation project and create a simple installer. Professional developers will be able to create complex multifunctional installation files by using advanced features.
The easiest and fastest way to create an installer for your application is to use the Actual Installer Wizard. First, prepare a directory with your application files and specify it as Source Directory. Then, select the Main Executable file of your application. After that, the Wizard will automatically retrieve and fill in information about the program: name, version, and publisher. You don't even have to enter it manually! Click Next and specify how the application should be installed on the user's computer - for the current user only, or all users (per-machine installation). Read more about installation levels. For the installation directory use the recommended path. Select "Include Uninstaller", choose the setup interface (we recommend Modern), and click OK. In Actual Installer, click the green arrow to build your project. And you will get a ready-to-distribution Setup.exe file. Creating installers has never been so easier!
For more than 20 years (initially released in 2004), Actual Installer has been helping software developers from all over the world create reliable installers for their products.
"Actual Installer is one of the handiest setup creators that one can find. It is simple to use and I recommend it with all my heart." - Margie Smeer from Software Informer.
"Actual Installer provides one of the easiest and simplest ways to create an installer for software deployment." - Mihaela Teodorovici from Softpedia.
"Actual Installer, this tool with its safe and reliable interface creates amazing software installation packages." - Free Downloads Center
With Actual Installer Free, you can create simple installer programs that support all basic installation features:
Advanced features allow you to create professional installers:
Actual Installer can create 32-bit and 64-bit installers. If your application is 64 bit, then simply select the "64-bit only" option in the Required OS section. With this option, a native 64-bit setup file will be created and the app will be installed in the appropriate 64-bit sections of File System (such as C:\Program Files), and register it in the 64-bit section of the Registry. If your app is 32-bit, then choose the "32 & 64 bit" option, as Windows x64 supports 32 bit apps. Learn more information about 64-bit installation.
If your application requires some 3rd party software for correct working, you can specify them in Actual Installer as software prerequisites. You can specify Microsoft .NET Framework, C++ Redistributable packages, SQL Server, Crystal Reports, or any other custom prerequisites. These software prerequisites can be included in the installer package or downloaded from specific links.
Actual Installer compiles an installation package as a single executable file / standalone installer (e.g. Setup.exe). Then, this file can be easily uploaded to your website and made available to visitors for downloading. Or, it can be distributed on CD/DVD and other media.
If your product is large (for example, a game or a database several Gigabytes in size), then Actual Installer can generate a small setup file and a large data file separately (Setup.exe + Data.zip). Actual Installer also supports creating Online Installer - a small setup file which downloads the remaining application data during installation.
Actual Installer enables you to create a Windows installer package in any supported languages with the auto-detect function. You can also specify separate text or file for each language, for example: specific License Agreement file (or URL) for the corresponding installation language.
Actual Installer creates good-looking installation programs (see examples). It has templates for the Classic Wizard and Modern installations. For the Modern Interface, the Template Editor is available. You will be able to use your custom icon and logo, installation graphics, fonts, edit any text and messages. Add custom components, like check box or combo box. The silent installation mode is also supported. In this mode no user interface will be shown. It's useful for unattended installation over large number of computers.
For creating flexible installations, in Actual Installer project you can specify any custom commands to be executed on the user's system. Commands can be executed before, during, and after installation (and uninstallation). Also, Actual Installer has a feature to read data into variables from Windows Registry, INI or any files, read Internet file.
Actual Installer includes an update utility. This allows you to easily to provide the latest versions of your applications to users.
Installer files created with Actual Installer work fine on Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 11, and Server versions.
Active Setup is a mechanism for executing commands once per user during logon. It is used to set up an initial app configuration for new users logging on for the first time. Read more.
Automatically launch app on Windows startup
Options if app is already installed: Uninstall, Update, Allow Multiple Versions, Ask User
Register App Path (this feature makes your program accessible from the command window or the Run dialog box without registering it in the PATH environment variable)
Cache Setup File
Here are some best practices recommendations for software installation:
Actual Installer uses Product GUID, as a product identifier (e.g. {318020E9-4E14-DAB0-1CE4-2EE91C6FF5D0} is for Actual Installer). A unique Product GUID is generated when you create a new project. The setup program uses Product GUID to detect the currently installed version of the application, so it is very important to use the same Product GUID for the main installation of the application and its updates and patches.
On the Parameters tab you can specify how your application should be installed on the user computer: for Current User or All Users. Select Ask User to let the user choose a preferred mode. The installation for all users on a computer (per-machine setup) requires administrator privileges. Shortcuts will be created in accordance with this setting.
The Requirements tab allows you to choose Windows versions under which your application works properly. If your developed a 64-bit application then make sure to select 64-bit only option, otherwise the setup program will install it in the "C:\Program Files (x86)" directory, instead of "C:\Program Files".
The following are Windows protected sections and Administrator Privileges are required to write access: folders "C:\Program Files", "C:\Windows", Registry Key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE", and other.
IMPORTANT: Please read the recommendation from Microsoft on where to install applications:
Your app must be installed in the Program Files folder by default. User data or app data must never be stored in this location because of the security permissions configured for this folder.
Your app data, which must be shared among users on the computer, should be stored within ProgramData.
Your app's data that is exclusive to a specific user and that is not to be shared with other users of the computer, must be stored in Users\%USERNAME%\AppData
In Actual Installer, use variables to replace them with actual paths:
Variable for Program Files - <ProgramFiles>
Variable for ProgramData - <CommonAppData>
Variable for Users\%USERNAME%\AppData - <AppData>
NOTE: It is not recommended to install files to User's Documents folder, as it is protected. Read more about protected folders.
It is highly recommended to enable the uninstallation for the application. By default, the uninstaller deletes only files and folders that were created during the installation. If your application creates additional files / folders in the installation directory, the uninstaller will leave them in the system. Select "Full Uninstallation" to completely delete the product installation directory. Also, it is recommended to ask the user if he/she wants to leave or remove the app settings. Read more about uninstallation.
Following these recommendations will enable you to create the best installer for your Windows application.
Useful articles:
Software Principles from Google
Requirements for Windows Desktop Apps from Microsoft