Creating an installer that installs two programs? - installation

I have an electron app that I want my users to be able to install. However, a dependency of this app is a C++ package that I have compressed in a .zip file. I need the user to unzip this file and put it into a certain directory under Program Files (target platform is windows). Is it possible to create an installer that both installs the electron app and contains a payload that it can unzip and put into that directory?

Yes, this is possible. An Electron app is just a bunch of files that you can package however you want. A great tool for packaging Electron apps is electron-builder
electron-builder uses NSIS by default to build Windows setups. It also provides a way to customize the NSIS script
If you want to include additional resources for use during installation, such as scripts or additional installers, you can place them in the build directory and include them with File. For example, to include and run extramsi.msi during installation, place it in the build directory and use the following:
!macro customInstall
File /oname=$PLUGINSDIR\extramsi.msi "${BUILD_RESOURCES_DIR}\extramsi.msi"
ExecWait '"msiexec" /i "$PLUGINSDIR\extramsi.msi" /passive'
!macroend
In your case, instead of extramsi.msi, you'll probably want to include 7zip standalone console version and your additional .zip file. You can use this custom script to extract this file to wherever you want

Related

How to build an installer for a python application for Mac

I have created a python application and can install it perfectly fine on Windows. I run pyinstaller to generate the executable, and then use NSIS to create an actual installer. I run the installer and it installs the application to my Program Files folder and gives me a nice desktop shortcut, etc.
What is the process to do the same for Mac? Essentially, I want to give my user a single file. When they run the file, it installs my program and any necessary libraries, and let's them launch it with a single click. I believe on Mac this is done with a .dmg or a .pkg file. What software/tools do I need to generate such a file? Do I need to restructure the project in anyway to create this?
For more info, pyinstaller creates a folder 'dist' which contains the unix executable of the application, and copies of python and any required libraries.
Note that I do not want to use the onefile option for pyinstaller because it would take a while to unpack everything each time the program is ran.

Windows store APPX package install file in different location

So I have recently developed an app for the windows store, I packaged it into an APPX package. The problem is that windows auto installs it into a non-accessible folder meaning I cannot reference .exe and .pdf files.
Is there a way to make it always install 2 files in the same place, for example the two files which need to be edited install on desktop and the rest of the app in the usual install location?
Can I do this using two separate .APPX files?
No, all APPX/MSIX packages are installed/extracted under the ProgramFiles/WindowsApps folder.
This folder is read-only, only the OS can write in there (when it's installing the app).
The solution is to copy the files you want from the install folder, the first time a user launches your application.

InstallForge, run a third party exe from the current directory?

I am building an installer using InstallForge.
Along with my install, i need to run some Third Party installers, for example, Cuda 9.1.
What I want is to create an installer, and a folder structure like this:
Installer.exe
InstallsDir
-Cuda.exe
-ThirdpartyInstall.exe
Then when my installer runs, it should also run the other two exe files.
In the setup process for InstallForge, it allows you to run commands, which i can use to run the exe files.
There is a command variable: <installpath>\ that is used to run a file from the path that my programme is installed to.
My question is, is there a similar command that i can use to run a file in the directory that the installer runs from?
How can i set a relative link to the current directory using InstallForge setup?

Package nwjs app into a single exe

I have created an installer program for my application using NWJS. I need to package the NWJS app into a single exe. I was going to use windows iexpress becasue that would provide exactly the function I need, however I can't use that because it does not support directorys inside the archive and even with the app html files packaged into package.nw NWJS still requires the locales directory to run and also iexpress has some security flaws.
Basically I need something like this:
1: it is a single portable executable file which contains some sort of archive with the nwjs files in it.
2: when the exe is run it extracts the archive to a temporary directory and runs nwjs.
3: when nwjs exits it deletes the temp directory.
So far I have not found any way of doing this.
I did some more research and solved it myself by using Enigma Virtual Box.
http://enigmaprotector.com/en/downloads.html

How to autolaunch installer from dmg

I want to deploy my program on Macintosh and I have a working installer but the installer and the files are packed into a zip file. I would like to make a DMG file and place them into it. This is easy to do but I would like the installer to start automatically when the user opens the DMG file. Is there any way to do that?
No, you cannot do this. What you need to do is convert your installer package to a flat package (these are now the default anyway). A flat package installer is a single file, so there's no need to bundle it into a zip or DMG.

Resources