Monday, March 05, 2012

"Visual & Installer" Free Visual Studio Add-in for creating NSIS and Inno Setup installers

Visual Studio Gallery - Visual & Installer

"Visual Studio Add-in for creating NSIS and Inno Setup installers. It integrates NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) and Inno Setup with Microsoft Visual Studio IDE and allows you to create and build NSIS and Inno Setup projects right within Visual Studio getting all benefits of common integrated environment!

image

Visual & Installer installation package also contains Graphical Installer Wizard - optional tool for creating cool-looking skinned NSIS and Inno Setup installers (based on Graphical Installer) directly in Visual Studio. With it whole installer can be created by a few clicks - No manual writing is necessary!

Key Features

  • Full integration into Visual Studio IDE
  • New project types: NSISProject and InnoSetupProject
  • Wizards for creating new projects
  • Build installers directly with other project types
  • Complete integration to the solution build process
  • MSBuild support
  • Quick jump from Error List window
  • Hints and tips for writing scripts
  • Support for Visual Studio 2010
  • Full version control system support
  • FREE!

..."

You know that there's no Setup and Deployment Project support in VS11 right? That the only "Desktop" setup option that comes in the box is to download the InstallShield Limited Edition? Visual Studio Setup & Deployment Projects declared dead & retired. VS2010 will be the last…

While this add-in doesn't yet support VS11, it might not hurt to look for other setup options now. If you're looking to move to another setup creation solution ahead now, I'm thinking it might make some good sense to check out the very popular (and also free) Nullsoft Scriptable Install System and Inno Setup options. And this free VS add-in looks to make using them even easier...

 

Related Past Post XRef:
Visual Studio Setup & Deployment Projects declared dead & retired. VS2010 will be the last…
Free InstallShield Limited Edition 2010 coming to help our VS2010 Windows Installer and TFS/automated building woes

An end-to-end WiX example...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I checked this tool and there is a never version which already supports Visual Studio 11 (or 2012 RC) so creating setup in VS is not dead! :)

Anonymous said...

One question...is it working with 2010 Express edition?

Best regards.

Anonymous said...

It is free only for 30 days trial. After that you need to puchase a liscence key.

Greg said...

It does look like it is trial-ware (I don't think it was when I wrote this post). The good news is that some of it still is free, even after the trial ends. Here's a snip from the download page.

"The GOLD version is a fully functional Trial version of product - it will run for 30 days on your machine and you can try all features of this product.
After 30 days you need to purchase license.key or to uninstall the software.

An optional tool in this package - Graphical Installer Wizard is FREE (and always will be!) - you can use it after your Trial period expires.

..."