Installing a program requires not only copying its executable files to your computer, most of the times, it is also necessary to copy additional files and make changes to the system so that more complex operations can be configured, such as auto-starting, creating file associations, and establishing license conditions. That is why you need a program like Setup Factory to make sure everything is done properly, with minimal user intervention.
Setup Factory can help you create program installers quite easily. Fortunately, there is a wizard to take through all the necessary steps. First, you can provide general information about the project. Then, you can specify the supported operating systems. After that, you should enter the location of the files to be included in the installer package. Fortunately, there are also multiple visual themes to choose from; however, you cannot create your own designs. It is good that you can create multi-language installers. Since most programs need additional frameworks and libraries to work properly, it is also important to identify which of them are necessary, so that, when the stated requirements are not met, the user cannot proceed with the installation. Yet, Setup Factory has a related limitation: it only supports .NET frameworks, which leaves aside software using Java runtime environments. Finally, it is necessary to set the required privileges, such as running the installer as a system administrator.
The resulting installer package can be exported as a single executable file or split to fit the capacity of a disquette, a CD, a DVD or any other user-defined size. Likewise, this tool allows you to plan various actions that can be triggered by startup, pre-install, post-install and shutdown events.
Compared with other similar tools, Setup Factory has the main advantage of being simpler to use. However, this is at the expense of being less sophisticated, because the tool does not allow configuring databases, designing your own interfaces, opening projects right from the IDE, to mention but a few limitations.
v9.1 [Jun 28, 2012]
NEW! Native 64-Bit Runtime
As development of native 64-bit applications continue to grow, take comfort in the fact that Setup Factory has you covered for your distribution needs. Setup Factory now allows you to generate 64-bit setups in addition to 32-bit. Whether you have 64-bit applications ready to go, or just want to be prepared for the future, Setup Factory will be ready and waiting to make your life easier.
NEW! LZMA2 Data Compression
With Setup Factory 9's improved LZMA data compression LZMA2, you'll see remarkably smaller installers as well as faster installation performance than ever before. Take advantage of the power of modern CPUs with its enhanced multithreading support. Compared to previous versions, our test results show up to 300% better compression performance and at least 20% faster installation speed. You'll be able to fit more on each CD/DVD (that’s a potentially huge manufacturing cost savings) and reduce your bandwidth for Internet distributed installers (that saves both you and your customers time and money). Additionally, customers will notice that your installers finish faster - and that means happier customers!
NEW! Faster Building
Every second counts when it comes to development time. Significant improvements have been made to Setup Factory 9's build process meaning that you'll spend less time building and more time developing.
NEW! Faster & More Powerful Lua 5.1 Scripting Engine
Setup Factory's scripting engine is now faster, more powerful and much more extensible. The Lua 5.1 system features incremental garbage collection, new mechanism for varargs, new syntax for long strings and comments, mod and length operators, metatables for all types and a fully reentrant parser.
NEW! Plugin SDK v2
Action Plugins are one of the best features of Setup Factory. They allow 3rd party software developers to extend and expand the product in an extremely integrated and seamless fashion. By simply dropping a plugin into your project, you can easily save yourself hours of work and add significant functionality to your setup. The great news is that with Setup Factory, plugin developers can now fully leverage the advantages of the Lua 5.1 language. The Plugin SDK v2 is available for free download on the indigorose.com website.
NEW! Billboard Screen Control
The new billboard control allows you to incorporate billboards or static images on your custom screens and custom progress screens. Billboards can be used to show both single images, and image slideshows at any point in the setup, even while installing or uninstalling files.
NEW! Custom Progress Screen
Previous progress screen types limited the types of controls you could add. The new custom progress screen gives you the freedom to design your own progress screen with any type or number of controls you wish.
NEW! Custom Screen Size
If screen real estate is important, no need to worry! Setup Factory now allows you to create screens of any size through its enhanced theme settings. Screen sizes can be controlled project-wide through it's theme, or overridden on a per-screen basis.
NEW! Setup Styles / Skinning
Setup Factory 9 gives you the freedom to create setups that look exactly the way you want. Perhaps you prefer that your setups take on the same appearance as the operating system (e.g. Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 Aero, Windows 8)? Or perhaps you'd like to simply make use of the hundreds of ready-to-use MSSTYLES themes (like OS/X Tiger and Panther) that you can download on the Internet? In any case, Setup Factory makes it possible – and easy!
NEW! Set File / Folder Permissions
A powerful new action named "File.SetPermissions" allows you to set the user access permissions of any file or folder on the user's system.
NEW! Enhanced Build Configurations
Building multiple installs from one Setup Factory project has become even easier in Setup Factory 9 with the addition of Dependency Modules and Plugins to build configurations. This helps to make developing 32-bit and 64-bit installations within the same project file a breeze.
NEW! Improved Add Files Dialog
We've improved the Add Files dialog on Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 to give you the options that you would expect on those operating systems, including the search option and your favorite links.
NEW! Latest Technologies Runtime Dependency Modules
In addition to the classic modules like Visual Basic 5.0/6.0, – Setup Factory now includes easy-to-use runtime dependency modules in both 32-bit and 64-bit for the newest and most popular technologies like .NET 4, Visual C++ 2010 and Windows Installer 4.5.
NEW! 100% Import of Setup Factory 7.0 / 8.0 Projects
Upgrading to Setup Factory 9 is almost completely hassle-free. Simply open up your Setup Factory 7.0 / 8.0 project files and continue development. See the Changes to Setup Factory topic for information about minor changes that may be required.
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