Best installation tool?

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luke@webber.com.au - 10 Dec 2007 07:31 GMT

I have a need for an installation tool that will work for Winblows 95
through Vista, plus MacOS X and earlier. I was originally planning to
use Java Webstart, but a good number of the machines that this app
will be installed on will have no existing JRE and no internet
connection. This will load from a CD.

It would be nice to have a license activation feature, but if so, it
would need to be very flexible, because this app will need to be able
to keep license information for multiple businesses on a single PC,
and the application will be able to decrement and top up the count.
Why? The licensing for this product is based on a certain number of
operations, rather than being a one-off or time-based activation.

If need be I can deal with the activation logic myself, but if I need
to buy an installer, it would be great if it could handle that end for
me.

Many thanks for any and all suggestions.
Luke

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Roedy Green - 12 Dec 2007 16:45 GMT

>I have a need for an installation tool

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/installer.html

for a list of possibilities.

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Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
The Java Glossary
http://mindprod.com

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luke@webber.com.au - 13 Dec 2007 11:48 GMT

Hi Roedy,

Thanks. As it happens, I've already checked out your entry. I usually
tend to check the Java Glossary for these things. But I was hoping for
some recommendations from people who've used some of these tools. So
many of them are either clearly limited or ridiculously overpriced,
considering that I only want this for a single app.

Best regards,
Luke

On Dec 13, 3:45 am, Roedy Green <see_webs...@mindprod.com.invalid>
wrote:

> On Sun, 9 Dec 2007 23:31:13 -0800 (PST), l...@webber.com.au wrote,
> quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> for a list of possibilities.

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Roedy Green - 14 Dec 2007 16:28 GMT

>Thanks. As it happens, I've already checked out your entry. I usually
>tend to check the Java Glossary for these things. But I was hoping for
>some recommendations from people who've used some of these tools. So
>many of them are either clearly limited or ridiculously overpriced,
>considering that I only want this for a single app.

Java Web Start can do pretty well everything you need, and it handles
updates. It also works on all platforms.

It it is also much easier to use that any of the Installers I have
tried. About the only thing the installer does it bundle a private
JVM with your app.

But you don't WANT a private JVM if there is already a perfectly good
one.

You might write a little C program that check if a java install is
needed, and if so launches the install.

Signature

Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
The Java Glossary
http://mindprod.com

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Roedy Green - 14 Dec 2007 16:30 GMT

I created a CD version of The Replicator that installs with Jaws. It
uses at tiny SETUP.EXE in C to start the process off. There is also a
JVM on the CD to use if necessary.

You can download that at http://mindprod.com/products1.html#REPLICATOR

Signature

Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
The Java Glossary
http://mindprod.com

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Owen Jacobson - 12 Dec 2007 21:11 GMT

On Dec 9, 11:31 pm, l...@webber.com.au wrote:

> I have a need for an installation tool that will work for Winblows 95
> through Vista, plus MacOS X and earlier. I was originally planning to
> use Java Webstart, but a good number of the machines that this app
> will be installed on will have no existing JRE and no internet
> connection. This will load from a CD.

For Macs, the best installer is no installer at all. Just place an
application bundle on the CD and Mac users will be able to install it
themselves (since this is the standard way of doing things). A
correctly-configured bundle will use the right version of Java if it's
available (Java 4 is available on OS X 10.3 and later, Java 5 is
available on OS X 10.4 and later, both "out of the box" as far as I'm
aware).

You do not need to support OS 9 and earlier. Not even Apple supports
OS 9 and earlier; Leopard dropped support for OS 9 apps completely (no
more Classic). However, a correctly-packaged app bundle should run on
OS 9 as well. You might want to package a copy of the OS 9 Mac
Runtime for Java installer if you're dead-set on supporting these
users, but be aware that the most recent Java version available for
older versions is Java 1.3.1 (MRJ 2.2.6).

Documentation on Application Bundles for Java on OS X is available
here: <http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Java/Conceptual/
Java14Development/03-JavaDeployment/JavaDeployment.html>

But, seriously, use WebStart.

-o

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luke@webber.com.au - 13 Dec 2007 11:58 GMT

Thanks for that Owen.

The application bundle approach won't do, I'm afraid. I want to be
able to ship the same media to Mac users as to Winblows or (should it
come to that) Linux users.

As for JWS, I'm tempted. But as I said, many of these users won't have
internet connectivity or pre-installed JREs. I don't know, but I
strongly suspect that it would be a little tricky to set up a JWS
install CD with two or more JREs for different target platforms. But
I;d love to be proven wrong in that.

Thanks for the reply. I'm a total Mac novice, but my experiences to
date lead me to believe that the Java WORA promise is fairly close to
the truth. It's the installation that worries me.

Cheers,
Luke

> On Dec 9, 11:31 pm, l...@webber.com.au wrote:
>
[quoted text clipped - 27 lines]
>
> -o

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