Install Files Anywhere

This video shows the steps for creating an executable installation file that you so that whenever someone double clicks on it, it will automatically install your files to the location of your choice on their computer. http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Download

Video Transcription

Welcome to tinkernut.com videocast. If you enjoy this video please support them by subscribing or commenting below. This video, I am going to show how to create an executable installation file that installs files wherever you want to either on your computer or other people’s computers. So to do this, we are going to need a free program called “Nullsoft installer.” Nullsoft is the same people that make Winamp. So they are a pretty trusted company. Just do a Google search for it to get to the download page and download and install the program. Once you got in to the end of the installation process, it should prompt you to automatically launch the program. So choose that option and click finish and the first thing I am going to do, is show you how to create an installer based on a zip file. So here I create project folder with some screensaver files in it and I am going to select all of them, go to ‘send to” and compress zip folder to create a zip folder. Now, if I click the installer based on zip file and select the zip file I created, I can then choose the destination folder to install it to which is going to be, I am going to put in the C:/window/system32 folder which is the screensaver folder. And now I am just going to click generate and in my project folder here, you can see that it is created in executable file and when I double click on that file, it is going to show the destination folder that I chose. And once you click Install it should not install the files there. So here is my system32 folder and there are the project files that I had. So I am going to go ahead and delete these and show you another way to create installers. So let me delete this installer and if we go back to the main program and select the example scripts, it gives you a whole bunch of sample scripts to use. I am going to select example 1. I am going to copy it and paste it in my project folder. Now, if I go back to the program and select compile in a sized script and select the load button. I am going to select that example file that I just copied over. Now, I am going to click the edit script button and I am going to change some variables. I am going to change the name to tinkernut screensaver. I am going to change the file to right to tinkernut_saver.exe. That is what is going to be called the “executable file”. And now this is going to be the installation directory like in the previous example C:/window/system32, but you can make it whatever you want to install the files to. And now I am going to jump down here to the path and make it the same as the installation directory which in my case is window/system32. But now the files to put there, I am going to choose the tinkernut_saver.scr then the other file that is in my project folder. These are the two files that I want to put in the system32 directory. Now, I am just going to save it and hit the recompile button and if there are no errors, you can click the test and installer buttons to see if it works. And I am not going to here but if you see here is the tinkernutsaver.exe. If I double click on this, I can then quickly install and it should install these files to the system32 folders. So, here is the folder again and as you can see it reinstalled my files there. All right, that is it for this tutorial. For more, go to tinkernut.com.