Does anyone have any experience using a tool to convert any of the Creo suite to a single automated installation with an MSI or EXE builder?
Such as InstallShield/Admin Studio, NSIS, WIX, etc.
I'm aware of the silent scripting and multiple other options. I'm just wondering if anyone has experience using this method and if they have a preferred tool or any good/bad experiences.
Here's my experience. I started working with the installer included with Visual Studio 2010 and the InstallShield LE that came as a free offering with Visual Studio. It seemed like a great way to develop an installation with custom script locations. We wanted a click-it and forget-it solution to send to the masses.
You can set up files to be copied into specific locations. You can create shortcuts. Install registry settings. Check for prerequisites. The end result would give you a nice progress bar and your choice of defined locations or not. However, copying all of Creo Parametric into a new project was time consuming (there are other methods). Also when building it, both times I got 100% developed and ready to build it would throw an error. "Unrecoverable error", about as descriptive as java nullpointer, and the solutions given didn't work so we ended up scrapping everything and going back to Robocopy scripts. We're also looking at the executable zip but there are still limitations.
I'm also looking at the more Pro versions of InstallShield and their competitors to evaluate developing better installs. They seem to have better functionality but I'd also hate to have our company dish out a thousand dollars only to get to the end and get some similar error. Though, I'd at least have support then.
Thoughts, Experiences?