Inno Setup is a free and open-source[1] script-driven installation system[2] created in Delphi by Jordan Russell. The first version was released in 1997.
History
Since Jordan Russell wasn't satisfied with InstallShield Express, which he had received upon purchase of Borland Delphi, he decided to make his own installer.[3] The first public version was 1.09.[citation needed]
To make an installation package with version 1.09, an "ISS.TXT" file needed to be created in the installation directory. In the file, the user needed to supply variables and values, which are still used in Inno Setup today. These variables served as the configuration of the installation package, but many other features could not be changed. The installation compiler had no editor and was more of a shell to compile scripts.
Inno Setup grew popular due to being free for both commercial and non-commercial use.[4] Starting with version 6.5.0, the developers have requested that commercial users purchase a license, although this is not strictly required under the terms of the project's open-source license.[5] Since Inno Setup was based around scripting, fans of Inno Setup started ISTool and ScriptMaker to aid in visual and simpler ways to make installations for Inno Setup.
Inno Setup has won many awards, including the Shareware Industry Awards three times in a row– from 2002 to 2004.[6]
Many people have taken Inno Setup source code and used it to develop third-party versions of Inno Setup.[7] An example is My Inno Setup Extensions by Martijn Laan, which was incorporated into Inno Setup in June 2003.[8]
Features
Key features
Support for multiple platforms (IA-32, x64 and IA-64) in a single binary. ARM64 is also supported.
Supports creation of a single EXE to install programs for easy online distribution (MSI support requires third-party products)
Support for comparing file version information, replacing in-use files, shared file counting, registering DLL/OCXs and type libraries, and installing fonts
