Steve,
I can see your points, but being a Inno fan I can't resist trying to reply to your 'complaints'
1. Size: True, files are compressed one by one (by default with zlib compression), and not as one whole big chunk, so compression is 'less than optimal', although it is nearly as compact as winzip compression. If you select bzip compression, and/or have larger files to install, your milage will be much better, I got a 25% smaller setup.exe on some huge (8 MB, 18 MB) DLL's I have to install.
2. GUI: I told you ;-) get ISTool, the link is on the third party page, it supports all the options of the current Inno version (2.0.18), and it makes handling options for groups of files a snap. To me it did what Delphi did to Turbo Pascal

) I wanted to develop more in it!
3. CD Booting: What installer has that?, or sh(/c)ould I ask: What commercial installer has that??? And we're talking about free software here... This is a feature I also missed, so I wrote a tool for it called IASScript, and it can be found on my 'dumpster' page
There are better alternatives with fancy menu's etc, but I prefer my own tool, and this does what I need, supporting all the features available in the autorun.inf file.
4. Username/Serialnumber: This can quite easily been done in ISX, what can bee seen of as 'InnoSetup Advanced'. It has : (main features only, from the top of my head)
- Pascal Scripting support
- Custom wizard pages
- External DLL support
- All the features available in InnoSetup ;-)
So even your setup can be quite easily re-done in Inno, if you are willing to put some time in it.
Some other points of info:
In the newsgroups supporting Inno, there are more than a few people that converted from InstallShield to Inno, and, like me, never want to go back. Main reasons mentioned:
- Easy to get started
- Lean and mean
- Great support
- Single-file setups (unlike Ishield Express)
- It's free!
There is a new major version (3.0) planned, so the current version will only get bugfixed, when needed. The current 2.0 will still be supported, and conversion to newer version is usually painless. Requested features are available on the webpage,
(I wrote .com before, sorry).
I'm not trying to convert nor convince anyone, just hope I can shine some light on this somewhat religious matter.
If you feel a need to have more info or inside information, please join the newsgroup and it has a webinterface also. I know InnoSetup can't be everything to everybody, but this one comes close to that kitchen's sink we all seem to have heard of... ;-)
Grtz,
TonHu