Custom installer for a .net application

I need to create a custom installer that supports French, German, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Russian, English, chinese (mandarin script), more languages to be added for a .net based application.

This installer also needs to be able to check whether the target system has got adobe installed or not. If the target system doesnt have adobe or is a lower version than required then it should install from the CD. if it does then bypass that step.

The installer also needs to prompt the user to browse to any location on the system to pick up a file which will be place in the installation folder.

The installer also need to register this program in th开发者_如何学Goe add remove programs list.

Is there a custom installer that can do all of these tasks or do I need to build an application from scratch for it?

Thoughts... ideas???

Thanks for your time...

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Short answer : Yes, all those things can be done, most of them easily.

WiX or NSIS are probably your two best free options. NSIS uses a plugin architecture for most of it's functionality, but the plugins are text-files, so you should have no problems downloading them. However, if your company is "funny" about licensing, then check the relevant licenses for each plugin early on - most are completely free to use, but Legal can fail to understand this sometimes...

Please find below pointers to the relevant sections of the documentation, so you can get it downloaded (I feel your pain by the way!)

Language Support

See Docs

Allow user to select a file and copy it

You will need the InstallOptions plugin. This allows you to create an extra page in your install wizard which can prompt for information. It allows various controls, one of which is a file explorer control (search for FileRequest in the link).

To copy the file, you cannot simply use the File instruction, as that extracts and copies files from the installation media, and will not act on files on the target computer.

Instead, you will need a plugin - e.g. this wrapper around the WinAPI. Alternatively, use the CopyFiles instruction.

Register program in Add/Remove programs

This is standard in both WiX and NSIS.

Detect Adobe is installed.

NSIS has the ability to check if registry keys exist, or named files exist, which are the two normal methods of detecting installed programs.