Installations in Windows 7

I have to migrate our current software installation to be able to install in Windows 7.

It's a MFC application in Visual C++. The installation开发者_开发问答 is not extremly complex but it does have some complexity. It has to detect if some other software is installed previously to launch the msi file and let the user install it if it's not. There is some merge modules and nested msi, some custom actions (in dlls, vbscript, etc.). And one of our requeriments is that a non-administrative user has to be able to install the software. And preferably without having to agree any message once the installation is launched.

I think that the way it is done right now is a bit of a mess and I would like not just migrating but making a refactoring to make things better. So I would like to have some recommendations, a website with best practices, some books (preferable something up-to-date with specific information about installations in Windows 7). Any kind of help will be appreciated.

By the way, we are using InstallShield right now but I wouldn't mind to change to a better tool if there is any.

has anyboy used InstallShield LE for Visual Studio 2010? It's worthy to give it a try?

Thanks,

Javier

NSIS installer has plenty of features, including what you mentioned.

I don't think there's a book that deals with only installation for Windows 7. Although there are article on how to write Setup.

It's best to start with Microsoft User Experience Guidelines for Setup:

_{Users don't enjoy installing software, so modern setup experiences need to be simple, efficient, and problem-free.}

If you do only three things...

1. Make setup as simple and lightweight as possible. Remember that users don't enjoy setup, they endure it. Look carefully at every question, option, page, and path, and trim away everything that isn't essential to completing setup.
2. Design for all setup scenarios, including unattended installations, scripted installations, and uninstall. For efficient unattended installations, make sure there is a clean separation between the setup phases.
3. Design your setup program so that users can resolve setup problems on their own, but also log the information needed for technical support just in case. Keep in mind that setup is the one task that all users must complete successfully.

Guidelines for the First Experience, that is the first of an application, are also worth reading.
An older article Redesign Your Application's Installer talks about the separating executable files and data, both per-user and per-machine, about the shared components, etc.

In your case, since the setup needs to detect and install additional components if they're missing, it's better to use a setup bootstrapper.

You have two options:

1. Elevate with the bootstrapper then run the complete setup elevated.
2. Elevate only when you need to install the additional components, the prerequisites of your application.

The second option applies only when your application can be installed by standard users, i.e. per user installation as opposed to per machine or all users. In this case, if the additional components require elevation to install, and if at least one of them is not installed, you start an elevated process to install all the prerequisites. When it completes, you continue the installation of your application as the standard user.

The point is to show UAC confirmation only once: it would be really annoying if each of the prerequisites show their own UAC confirmation.