InstallSite Blog

Is it true that this is a spin-off of some ex-InstallShield employees?

Dear Stefan,

As you know, I have been asking you to undertake a competitive analysis of InstallAware and InstallShield products since day one. You have never responded to these requests for reasons unknown to me.

We have been shipping a unique product with features unmatched in the industry for three years now. We compress MSI packages 67% better - who doesn't want that? We offer partial web deployment to strip off application runtimes and still deliver independent installs that can run without an Internet connection. We invented MSIcode - arguably or most important innovation - which takes the rocket science out of Windows Installer, and lets you build intelligent MSI packages with branching codeflow and execution. InstallAware had and still has these unique features since 2004 - and this is nothing to say of the features we've added in the 3 years since our debut. However, as an industry expert, you have consistently declined to give us any coverage.

I am pleased that indeed, today, we are getting the coverage that we deserve, albeit in the form of bad press. The same Stefan who would not write an iota of text about InstallAware's time and money saving benefits on his website has put up extensive, even historical comparisons of our websites, and that of the competition.

I have hundreds of customers switching from InstallShield, complaining that they paid InstallShield more for upgrades than their new InstallAware license. They are practically begging us to get the word out about InstallAware, so other users get to hear about us before wasting their money. All these users have the same story: that InstallAware worked out-of-the-box for them, and with InstallShield, they went through multiple painful upgrade cycles, none of which solved their problem.

Hopefully, this will at least get some more people to notice us, and download our trials. Unlike our competition, we do not have a multi-million dollar marketing budget. In this space dominated so extensively by the competition, it has been very hard to get any coverage of the true benefits that our product holds, or at least have it stand out from the marketing fluff that the competition puts out on a regular basis.

I will happily admit that we invest our customer's money in making our actual products better. We do not waste our customer's money on expensive design firms or posh marketing campaigns. Every dime we get paid goes back into our products and research - and it shows.

Thank you finally for giving us some coverage, Stefan.

Sincerely,

Sinan

@Stefan: I didn't realize my employment history was on the public record :) May I ask how you came upon this information?

@Sebastian: Yes, InstallAware employs former InstallShield employees who were dissatisfied with the direction where InstallShield was being taken. Especially after the acquisition in 2004, with the founders relaxing on a beach somewhere and the new owners using InstallShield as a DRM bundling platform, things couldn't be worse for the setup authoring community.

We felt we could do something better. InstallAware is built by developers for developers, we don't do DRM, we don't bundle other products - we're pure installations, and it shows in our products. We've shipped 48-hour updates for .NET 2.0, .NET 3.0, and IE7 - supporting these new technologies before any other vendor (and, without charge). Based on what I hear from my ex-InstallShield customers, they used to be charged for all those updates, and the updates were available quite late.

@Stefan: I really wish you would write about the things we're actually doing for setup developers from time to time, such as the above ;)

Stefan - thanks for the posts, appreciate them. In closing, I wanted to reiterate how surprised I am that in the three years we've been in business, and with all our unique offerings that no other vendor to this day has matched, your first blog post was about our websites.

Take, for instance, Setup Squeezer - one of a kind tool, one-click operation, converts any MSI to typically half its size. Isn't this worth blogging about? Don't get me wrong - I fully respect your choices and freedom of speech, you are free to say (or not say) anything you want. I'm just trying to understand why these innovations aren't newsworthy by your standards, so we can perhaps better align our products with market expectations.

I understand as an InstallShield user you have little interest in tools by other vendors, but as an MVP in the installation space, who better than yourself to educate the public about new and emerging disruptive technologies, such as our MSIcode scripting engine? Even Microsoft today has started using similar engines, and I dare say we predicted this upcoming trend in the industry three years ago, by being the first to release an "uber-bootstrapper" engine.

If I may quote your email from 2003, when we were first starting our shop: "please forgive my openness, but frankly I don't think InstallAware will be a success...Also it's very hard to compete with the big players...I've already seen too many ambitious projects fail."

Stefan, regardless of your personal opinions on our chances of success, I think as an MVP its part of your responsibility to the entire setup community to point us out. Yes, we were very ambitious at the start of 2003 - and yes, we have delivered on every single one of the promises we made back then. The MSI market is full of InstallShield clones and InstallShield itself, which offer a complicated way to build Windows Installer packages at best, and a way that we call "rocket science" at worst. And if you were thinking of making really smart packages, plain impossible.

We are bringing developers real value by making it possible, easy and enjoyable - don't your blog readers deserve to hear about this as well, alongside or perhaps before the similarities of our website templates and that of our competition?

[Edit (Dec 15): I had to remove this part of the comment because it contained personal attacks and untrue statements. Sally, please contact me at skrueger@installsite.org - Stefan] 

As the founder, his actions flow to the entire cultural blood of his company.  Would you want to buy a product from someone with so little regard for creative ownership?  

[Edit (Dec 15): Removed for the same reason - Stefan] 

- Sally

Sinan, I can't help but notice that you are not answering Stefan's initial accusations. Instead, you are using this blog to advertise and praise your product.

Right now, nobody cares about that. What we (your potential customers) care about is that you STOLE TWICE from your competitors!!!

This kind of shady business practice makes me want to have nothing to do with you or your products.

Next!

Manual Trackback: http://robmensching.com/blog/archive/2006/12/11/Response-to-my-WiXAware-Introduction.aspx  (it seems trackbacking from my server is busted at the moment)

All due respect Stefan, but people need to know what a hoax Sinan is.  Was Sally's post a personal attack? Or a statement of facts?  I guess that's for the reader to decide.

From my perspective, it's black and white - Sinan is a thief.  Doing business with him, or buying InstallAware, is tantamount to buying stolen goods.

Is this some kind of FUD campaign against InstallAware? I guess their revenues are really beginning to piss some people off.

I met them in their SF offices just two weeks ago for a consulting project (that they did wonders with), and our setups have no problem at all running on Vista.

Keep up the great work, guys! Good to see people are beginning to notice.

@Sally; Can you give some more information on this point "...and the output is not compliant with the MSI standards - failing on Vista, for example..."?

I've been using InstallAware under Vista pretty much since I got my hands on the first Beta, and although there were problems back then, there has been nothing since RC1.

Also, the output is compliant with MSI Standards - the MSI included is actually FULLY compliant; the company that I work at, our main product is MS certified and is using InstallAware - the only way to get certification is to be compliant ...

And as for the personal attack on Sinan's creativity, well, I'd disagree, but that's not the point of this blog - we are here to discuss installers :)

Andy

@Sally: Where exactly is the copyrighted material? And how did you come to the conclusion that InstallAWARE produces faulty MSI packages that don't run on Vista?

@all: My suggestion is that, first try the product, then express your opinion.As for the site copy, i've personally contacted Sinan, so expect a reply for him shortly.In a short his reply was that he did that because he liked the site and was amazed from it's SEO optimization.What's so bad about it?

[Edit (Dec 15): I had to remove this part of the comment because it attacked a person that is not involved in this discussion. - Stefan]

@Nick: For the record, to date, we have received absolutely no complaints from Advanced Installer. If we do, we'll act on it.

Again for the record, the only actual complaint we received from Macrovision was over one line of duplicated text in our training webpage, which we were also prompt to change.

I've really enjoyed sparring here with multiple anonymous and not-so-anonymous posters, but I need to get back to working for my customers again. They're buying our products because we make *them* happy - and not VCs or other parties ;)

If anybody has a concern about where we are, call us. If anybody has a concern about our products, download them. You will find your answers there.

[Edit (Dec 15): Removed for the same reason. - Stefan]

What a very entertaining thread.  So many places to start. :)

I'm not sure how Stefan's status as an MS MVP obligates him to advertise InstallAware products for the `benefit` of the user community.

Also for the commment of `no complaints from Advanced Installer ... we'll act on it` that's way too funny.  You already know you've done wrong, you shouldn't need to be told.  Somehow I'm sure you'll action will be a repeat of the `david and goliath` pattern.

Also someone is going to really have to try hard to convince me that MSIcode is a good thing.  If you consider me `divorced from script`, then I say I'm glad the *** is gone and I don't want her to ever come back.  To create a new scripting language to describe the underlying MSI patterns seems like the most crazy thing in the world to me and I can see why InstallShield wouldn't be doing it.

As for all the other `we are the only ones` types comments ( like .Net 3.0 and uber-bootstrapper ) I hope everyone see's through these claims since InstallShield has setup prerequisites that enable the user to author their own prereqs without waiting on a vendor to do it.

As the one who designed the Zero G site prior to acquisition by Macromedia (the lower left thumb, above), I find the crappy xerox-copy approach amusing, flattering and kind of sad. I have no idea what the InstallAware product is like, but they'd be alot better off with their own identity.

Hi Christopher,

Many of our customers are finding that MSIcode helps them describe an MSI database a lot easier, by using human readable code instead of hard to follow, interlinked databases. Could you please explain why this seems like a bad idea to you? After all, WiX itself does the same thing - it uses XML to describe an MSI package, adding a layer of convenience on top of the native database structure.

A lot of our customers are initially turned off by scripting, because they have had bad experiences with InstallShield's scripting environment. InstallShield installs its scripting runtime before beginning a setup...we don't. InstallShield scripting fails if COM is damaged in any way on the target computer...ours works. In fact, our scripting doesn't install anything at all, and runs on Windows 95 Gold. Usually most our customer concerns are centered around these issues, so please let us know if you had any other reasons as to why scripting is bad.

About .NET 3.0, yes we are the first and only company to support it, and to make that support available free of charge. To the best of my knowledge, InstallShield charges users for these updates. Of course you can write your own prereq installer - but is that really why you are purchasing an install tool? You could even build your entire installation on your own, or even make your own scripting engine. We believe our customers are paying us so they get the latest and greatest served to them - its this convenience that makes them choose an installer (and frustrates them if the expected updates are not served on time, are expensive, or buggy).

Thanks...

Michael Nesmith

Hi Stefan,

I will try to answer your questions as best I can - please let me know if anything is unclear.

First about the .NET Framework EULA. We are not violating any EULA, because we are not changing a byte in the .NET Framework package, other than compression. We have multiple contacts at Microsoft who have been aware of this since 2005, and they have even published articles ragarding using InstallAware to deploy .NET applications in half the size (Barak Cohen). We are helping the .NET framework get on more computers by cutting its size in half - that doesn't bother Microsoft, to the contrary, Barak was pleased so he wrote an article about it, because it made his job of getting .NET installed on as many computers out there as possible easier. Rob is not on the .NET team and while he is entitled to his personal opinions, I do not believe they reflect the official opinion of Microsoft at this time.

About the Macrovision threat letter, their allegations were false, except for the one line of text in the training page. They alleged that we were intentionally trying to confuse users between their InstallAnywhere line and our InstallAware line, which does not make sense. InstallAnywhere is a Java product, InstallAware is a Windows Installer MSI product. If we were intending to confuse their users, we would not have picked the name of a Java installer for our product. The website design was not similar to any site they had in production at the time. We saw this as Macrovision's attempt to unfairly silence us, because back then, and still today, we are offering the only viable alternative to InstallShield products. In that regard, it is interesting that various disguised Macrovision employees and others on their payroll have once again started a campaign to misinform the public about InstallAware - how coincidental that this comes on the heels of our WiXAware announcement, and their last attempt came on the heels of our "Switch from InstallShield and win an iPod" announcement.

Finally, InstallAware has been called "a better Wise for Windows Installer than Wise itself" in an independent review (InstallWorld). This is because our MSIcode is the perfect correlate of Wise's WiseScript in the Win32 world. WiseScript generates EXE files, MSIcode generates pure MSI files. MSI Script on the other hand is a completely different and incompatible language, which is what Wise built for MSI files. So Wise had the idea on the Win32 world, but they did not carry it over to the Windows Installer world, and we are the first - and to date only - company offering an intuitive and powerful MSI authoring process. On that note, we have never received any threatening letters from Wise, or any blog posts from (disguised) Wise employees or affiliates defaming us and our products. There are doubtless some lessons in this for Macrovision regarding the nature of fair and vigorous competition.

I have been working at InstallAware for over a year now, and it saddens me to see that there is so much prejudice against our company, albeit on a site that has clear affiliations with InstallShield. I would encourage anybody who has doubts about us to visit our website, our community forums (www.installaware.com/forum), and see the hard work we are doing. Still not convinced? Call us and lets talk.

We are in business because we offer real value to setup developers. How else could we have survived - and grown - in this marketspace dominated by InstallShield?

Thanks...

Michael Nesmith

Michael,

It is no longer accurate to say that InstallShield installs a scripting engine.  Starting with InstallShield 12 ( nearly 9 months ago ) that design was depracated and InstallScript now compiles pure Type 1 CA's.  Since I am sure you already know that, I can only assume you are being dishonest when trying to make all of the claims about how your design is wonderful and InstallShield fails.  You are living in the past.

The reason to hate script based installs is because it's procedural code ( with a splash of OO depending on the langauge ) that you must write ( lot's of plumbing ) and test extensively.  This is true regardless of what language you implement it in.

The beauty of MSI is you don't need to write script.  You have data driven patterns that result in standard actions generating script at runtime that don't require you to either a) author them or b) test them.   The contract ( table ) is clearly defined and that's all you have to do.   To say that standard actions and tables are too difficult to understand and that they need to be translated into a custom domain specific language that looks like good old friendly script just reaks IMHO.

I don't know what others have found about Vista compatibility with InstallAware, but I found this:

"Also, during the discussion the other InstallAware representative said something that reinforced my negative impression of InstallAware.  It came up that there was some rather notorious compatibility issue in Vista that was believed to be caused by InstallAware.  It turned out to be a non-issue but before we knew that the InstallAware representative was happy to have a notorious bug associated with his product.  He said something to the effect of, "All publicity is good publicity because after a few months people forget what you did wrong and only remember your name."  That comment felt really sleazy and unprofessional."

Which is from Rob Mensching's blog at:

http://robmensching.com/blog/archive/2006/12/05/My-introduction-to-WiXAware-an-editor-for-the-WiX-toolset.aspx

Christopher,

Your prejudice is astounding. I work at InstallAware support - it is not my job to keep up to date on what competing products are doing (that is maybe marketing or product development). I am simply reporting what users are telling me about their InstallShield experience before moving to InstallAware. Is it a crime to point out the deficiencies of InstallShield? Perhaps you can reply in detail which part of my knowledge is out of date, so all our readers can find out how InstallShield has solved the COM dependency, engine pre-install, and minimum Windows version problems.

Your arguments against MSIcode scripts are flawed for two reasons:

First, any kind of programming and development requires coding, plumbing, and testing. This is the case whether you're writing procedural code, OO code, or populating MSI tables. Suggesting otherwise indicates there is something "magical" about the development method used which can "read the developers mind" and automatically fix errors before they occur, which is not possible (at least with today's levels of artificial intelligence ;) ).

Second, any kind of reasonably intelligent setup requires scripting one way or the other. If not - think why InstallShield provides "InstallScript". At the point where you do need scripting, InstallAware's MSIcode is a blessing because all the work you have done in the visual designers is instantly accessible to you (and customizable) in the MSIcode script view. Want to customize where some files go based on a condition? Just do it in MSIcode. Want to add some intelligent code branching on top of the setup logic you already have? Just do it in MSIcode. With InstallShield, your setup script is clueless about what you did in the visual designers, so the work you have to do in order to get your setup working right is doubled at best (and that's double the coding, plumbing, testing).

If you're unhappy with the MSIcode script, just stick to the visual designers in InstallAware. They'll prepare your reliable MSI for you. You don't have to write script. The difference is, when you do have to write script, the result will again be a reliable MSI, produced at substantially less the effort it would take with other tools.

So we're letting you have your cake and eat it too - why is that a bad thing?

Thanks...

Michael Nesmith

Michael-

If you are going to publically make complaints about a competitors product, you owe it to yourself to know if those claims are true and accurate.  I can't believe that you would say it's not your job to research if those statements are true.

I've already explained how those problems are gone ( InstallShield 12, Beta2 as seen:

http://forum.installsite.net/index.php?s=e487b75670f1a93fe84b8f48b9346c58&showtopic=14792

http://www.macrovision.com/downloads/newsletters/devletter/aug2006.htm#5

http://chrpai.blogspot.com/2006/04/installshield-12-beta2.html

I'm afraid you've lost all credibility with me so I won't be communicating with you again in the future.

Chris -

Like I said, I am simply reporting issues that customers have raised about InstallShield. The fact that version 12 allegedly fixes these issues does not invalidate my report in any way, as these issues are true with older versions - the 11+ versions before v12 - by your own admission.

Also, from the first URL you sent:

"As a side effect this design change may break your existing projects under certain conditions." Which seems to echo just more of what I hear from customers - that upgrading projects to the new "holy grail" v12 just breaks them.

The other two URLs you sent do not address the COM dependency errors, they simply indicate that a setup engine does not need to be pre-installed any longer. So you have failed to comment on that point. InstallShield 12 may still have a COM dependency which still causes problems like I described.

I still don't follow how pointing out flaws in your arguments or InstallShield causes me to lose credibility. You have full freedom to turn a blind spot to everything I say, of course.

This only speaks of your personal alignment with a particular product. Unlike yourself, we will not question your credibility or integrity. We will simply correct you (and stand corrected if we are wrong in something we say).

Maybe that's too much to ask for from die-hard InstallShield fans?

Thanks...

Michael Nesmith

To fred_a: If you actually read the very post that you quoted, Rob says "It turned out to be a non-issue." In English, this means the Microsoft person who believed it to be a problem in InstallAware was wrong, and that there were no problems at all with Vista.

-MN.

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