Using InstallMate Builder

InstallMate helps you to create installation ("Setup") programs for your own software product. It consists of two major components:

• The development environment, also known as the InstallMate Builder. This is where you design your installer, specify the files, folders, shortcuts, etc. that must be installed, create the user interface (the Setup wizard pages that the user will see), and define the installation actions.
• The actual installer, a small program called Setup.exe that performs the installation.

This section describes how to use the InstallMate Builder development environment. For information about the use of the resulting installers, see the topic Using InstallMate Setup.exe.

How to get started

To create an installer, you must go through the following steps:

1. Start the InstallMate Builder development environment.
2. Create a new project.
3. Add the files, folders, shortcuts, etc. that must be installed.
4. Build the installer. This is as simple as pressing the F7 key or choosing the Project > Build Default command from the main menu.
5. Deal with any diagnostic messages that InstallMate may generate as it checks and builds your installer.
6. Distribute your installer.

At a later date, you can re-open the project, make changes, and rebuild. Or you can simply rebuild the project as-is, for example if some of the files were updated, but nothing else changed.

Tip: You also use InstallMate Builder in batch mode to check or build your installers. See InstallMate Builder command line syntax for details.

What's in a project?

A InstallMate project contains information about your installer:

• The files, folders, and shortcuts that must be installed.
• System settings such as registry entries, COM class registration, and many more, that must be configured for your product.
• The dialog boxes that form the user interface of your installer.
• The action sequences that must be executed to install your product.

The project information is stored in a text file in XML format. It does NOT contain the actual installation files themselves; these reside elsewhere on your computer. InstallMate will copy them (in compressed form) to the installation package when it builds your installer, but leaves them up to you otherwise.

Where to go next

We recommend that you study the following topics to learn more about the use and application of InstallMate:

• Project pages
• Attribute panes
• Files and folders
• Components
• Installer options
• Diagnostic messages

More advanced topics:

• Installation types
• Installer packaging
• Symbolic expressions
• Conditional expressions