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A Small and Simple Setup Program

Information

Description



Setup Screen Shot

This is a simple setup program that is scripted by a .ini file named SETUP.INI. I wrote it so that I would have a SMALL setup program for my shareware programs which are downloaded from my web page. I also made it easy to create SETUP.INI scripts since I had to create setups for several programs. The setup program and its SETUP.INI script will take up about 152 kb uncompressed.

The appearance of the program is customizable. The program allows the user to specify an installation directory. This directory is created and one or more files are copied into it. Then a Start Menu shortcut to the .exe being installed is created. A desktop shortcut is optionally created. In the event of problems, the program attempts to clean up by deleting the directory (if it was created by the setup program) and the files that were copied into the directory.

This program does not install compressed files (although it would be easy to modify it to use the "LZ" Win32 compression APIs). It does not have an uninstall feature.

The SETUP.INI file needs to be in the same directory with the setup.exe program and all installation files.

Example SETUP.INI:

[Setup]
Name=Vault
Caption=Vault Setup
DefaultDirectory=Vault
DirectoryPrompt=Type in the directory in which Vault will be installed:
Description=Vault stores your information as an outline.  Vault organizes your information into categories and sub-categories that you specify.  Vault's search command finds the information you need instantly.  You can also browse the outline by expanding and collapsing items.  Vault's Send command allows you to send your notes to co-workers via electronic mail.  Vault's Print command allows you to specify which notes to print, and how they should appear.  Vault's Print Preview command allows you to inspect the appearance of printouts before sending them to the printer.
MainDialogText=This program installs Vault on your computer system.
Requirements=This version of Vault requires a '386, '486 or Pentium computer running Windows 95, Windows 98, or NT 4 or later.
RequiredDiskSpace=636237

[Files]
Files=4

File1=vault.exe
File2=vault.hlp
File3=vault.cnt
File4=example.vlt

[Shortcuts]
ExeName=Vault.exe
LnkName=Vault.lnk

Description of items in SETUP.INI: (comments are in "{}")

[Setup]
Name={Name of program being installed}
Caption={Caption to display on setup program's title bar}
DefaultDirectory={Default directory in which the program will be installed}
DirectoryPrompt={Prompt displayed to user in directory selection dialog box}
Description={Freeform text displayed when the "Description" button is pressed"}
MainDialogText={Caption on setup program's main window, which is a dialog box}
Requirements={Freeform text displayed when the "Requirements" button is pressed"}
RequiredDiskSpace={Disk space in bytes required to store all installation files, do not include commas in this number}

[Files]
Files={Number of installation files}

File1={Installation file #1}
File2={Installation file #2, etc.}

[Shortcuts]
ExeName={Name of .exe file, not a full path}
LnkName={Name of Start Menu and (optionally) Desktop shortcut file, not a full path}

For an example of how this setup program is configured and used, download any of the programs from Windows 95, Windows 98, and NT Shareware Programs (except for the screen savers).

Requirements

This source code was developed with Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.

The setup.exe program requires Windows 95, Windows 98, or NT 4 (or later).

Source Code

Download setup.zip



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