Bulletproof Installs - A Developer's Guide to Install Programs for Windows (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Creating effective install programs is all too often an afterthought in many software projects. This book shows how easy it is to take advantage of the features of InstallShield (the leading installation toolkit from InstallShield Software). The first part of Bulletproof Installs looks at the powerful capabilities of InstallShield 5.1. (A demo of the product is included in the accompanying CD-ROM.) InstallShield can automate every aspect of even complex installations, including "add-on" Microsoft technologies such as DirectX (for games), Open Database Connectivity (ODBC), ActiveX Data Object (ADO), Remote Data Objects (RDO), and object linking and embedding database (OLE-DB). The author shows you how to use the built-in wizards to create basic--and powerful--install programs.

The book goes further, too, with full coverage of InstallShield's very powerful InstallScript programming script language, which supports extensive data types and flow-control statements and several hundred APIs. Other valuable chapters look at operating system issues for installation (and uninstallation), such as the Windows 95 and NT 4 System Registry conventions and other conventions of a "correct" install. The book closes with a how-to on extending and customizing installation scripts. --Richard Dragan

Product Description

Walks you step by step through building Windowsbased installation software that works first time, every time, using InstallShield5, the industrystandard development, environment for Windows installers. Paper. CD-ROM included. DLC: Install programs (Computer programs).

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Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Prentice Hall PTR (September 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0137980914
• ISBN-13: 978-0137980918
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,732,233 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars An OK book that is out of date., July 22, 2001

By	Thomas Brock "twitter.com/filmboy" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This was an OK book in it's time, but it is now completely out of date. This book covers InstallShield 5, which is not supported on Windows ME, Windows 2000, or Windows XP. Both InstallShild 6 and InstallShield Windows Installer Edition are different enought from InstallShield 5 to make this book obsolete.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Out of date, September 26, 2000

By	Steve Williams (Vancouver, BC, Canada) - See all my reviews

Overall, the book is good. Better than the IS docs anyhow.

Bear in mind that the book is written for Version 5.1 and below.

InstallShield made a major switch to an event-driven installation and script model in Version 6.1 So a lot of the examples are out of date and need to be converted.

I found this confusing as I was trying to learn and port to the new version at the same time.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great back then, not so great now, December 28, 2001

By	J. Turner (Houston, Texas United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I originally purchased this book to help me with a massive project. Most of my installations required installing my device drivers (data acquisition and motion controller drivers), my own software, and third-party applications (computer vision). As a result, the standard documentation wasn't exactly overly helpful.

This was the best book on the market. At the time, it was the ONLY book on the market. Although it offered a nominal amount of help for me, it did give me a fuller understanding to InstallShield and really helped when I needed to build installers for more standard applications.

Considering at the time this book was originally published, the only other avenue to get IS information was to attend a high dollar seminar, it was a great value.

This book comes with a CDROM with InstallShield 5, DemoShield and some other demoware.

I give it 3 stars, not because it isn't a great book, but because Microsoft redefined how installers should work with the operating system (driver signatures, system directory protection, etc.) and some of the information is now obsolete.