Advanced Installer

At TechED in Houston North America 2014 I had time to look at the Advanced Installer in the Expo Hall, I was impressed of the demo. I have always recommended Flexera AdminStudio as the tool to use for repackaging in the projects that I am involved with as this is a very powerful tool for repackaging software to Windows Installer packages/App-v packages.

Advanced Installer in the latest version looks like it could be an alternative to AdminStudio as there are many new features, App-V support, Snapshot support and so on.

I also have a feeling that many Flexera AdminStudio users, admins that do repackaging doesn’t really use all the features in AdminStudio and that Advanced Installer could be a less expensive option AdminStudio and provide enough features.

From a licensing perspective Advanced Installer is interesting as well if you are a consultant or an organization that repackages applications for customers, there is no additional license cost in the these scenarios for Advanced Installer. You can package applications using your license and selll them or give them to your customers.

If you haven’t had a look at it before more information on Advanced Installer can be found here: http://www.advancedinstaller.com/

Here is a short video on how to repackage 7-zip using Advanced Installer:

Here are some other free options, some with limited functionality, but all available out there for repackaging your applications/script or whatever teaks you are doing to .MSI:

InstEd: http://www.instedit.com/

Adminstudio Configuration Manager Edition: http://www.flexerasoftware.com/landing/adminstudio-configuration-manager-download.html

Orca (the true hardcore tool): http://www.technipages.com/download-orca-msi-editor

AdvancedInstaller free: http://www.advancedinstaller.com/download.html