installation program

Visual Basic 6 included a "Package and Deployment Wizard". The wizard actually uses a template project that is in the VB install directory. I can't remember the exact location; search for *.vbp in the VB directory, it should be called setup.vbp if I remember correctly.

It's a pretty decent example.


[EDIT] The path is C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98\Wizards\PDWizard\Setup1

The *same* program that the wizard generates for installations can be found at...

   vb_install_folder\Wizards\PDWizard\Setup1\

which normally would be...

   C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98\Wizards\PDWizard\Setup1\

I have found it kinda hard to dive trhough the code though. It is a lot complex.

VBBR...o_O...from the R3D site?

Sure it is me :)

...oh, and from VBGamer also.

I think he wants to write his own installation package in Visual Basic, instead of using the P&D Wizard.

It's not that hard, except for dependency determination. However, Visual Basic is useless for this kind of work since it requires the Visual Basic Runtimes, which are about 6MB in size. Without the runtimes, your setup package would refuse to run.

There are ways to "fuse" the VB runtimes into your VB exe, but that would mean your setup package would be at least 6Mb in size, and then you still have to add the setup files. It would be horrible for having users to download a 6mb package for an application which is smaller then 150K(For a game that's 150Mb it isn't a problem, but for small apps it is).

The best language to write such a tool is C++ or Delphi, which require no external DLLs to run. Inno setup for instance, is only 380K in size, without scripts and install files. So if you app would be 200K, you end up with a 580K setup package.

Either learn a different language and implement it in that, or stick with existing installers like Inno Setup and Windows Installer.

Toolmaker

I know this doesn't exactly answer the question, but as an alternative, there is Inno setup. Sorry, it's just my anti-M$ bias.

http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php

Quote:

Original post by Toolmaker I think he wants to write his own installation package in Visual Basic, instead of using the P&D Wizard.

Yes. BUT, the P&D wizard exposes the template project it uses -- basically, it's a perfect example of how to do it.


As for the runtimes, P&D uses a C++ executable (source not provided) that installs the VB runtimes if needed and then invokes the VB installer.

Also there is NSIS, look for it at SourceForge.