For those of you who don't know what INNO Setup is, it's a free open-source installer for Windows programs written in Delphi by Jordan Russell. It was first released in 1997 and has since then become a good alternative versus commercial installers if not it even surpasses them in terms of flexibility and stability.

So what's this tutorial doing in a website dedicated to gaming? That's because some of the games out there do not have a working installer. From a user interface point of view, it's really a bad choice not to have a installer especially when your game consists of different files and directories. Installers make it a lot easier for a novice to install/uninstall, create shorcuts, and other user-friendly stuff. For this tutorial we'll be making an installer for OpenArena - a free and open-source first-person shooter (FPS). We will also be using ISTool , a third-party tool by Bjørnar Henden which is essentially a GUI front-end for creating/editing INNO Setup scripts.

Requirements

• INNO Setup
• ISTool
• OpenArena

INNO Setup 5.2.3

• Support for all versions of Windows in use today: Vista, XP, 2008, 2003, 2000, Me, 98, 95, and NT 4.0. (No service packs are required)
• Extensive support for installation of 64-bit applications on the 64-bit editions of Windows. Both the x64 and Itanium architectures are supported. (On the Itanium architecture, Service Pack 1 or later is required on Windows Server 2003 to install in 64-bit mode)
• Supports creation of a single EXE to install your program for easy online distribution. Disk spanning is also supported
• Standard Windows 2000/XP-style wizard interface
• Customizable setup types, e.g. Full, Minimal, Custom
• Complete uninstall capabilities
• Includes integrated support for "deflate", bzip2, and 7-Zip LZMA file compression. The installer has the ability to compare file version info, replace in-use files, use shared file counting, register DLL/OCX's and type libraries, and install fonts
• Creation of shortcuts anywhere, including in the Start Menu and on the desktop
• Creation of registry and .INI entries
• Integrated Pascal scripting engine
• Support for multilingual installs
• Support for passworded and encrypted installs
• Silent install and uninstall
• Full source code is available (Borland Delphi 2.0-5.0)

ISTool 5.3.0

• Support for all Inno Setup directives
• Drag and drop. You can drag files from the Windows Explorer and drop them on the wanted directory in the Files section in ISTool
• Separate script view with syntax coloring
• Clipboard is fully supported in most sections
• Preserves script comments
• Can import Visual Basic .lst files and InstallShield .iwz files
• Translated to multiple languages

OpenArena 0.8.1

•  Uses protocol 71
•  Single player campaign re-organized
•  'Depreciated' client for Windows 9X
•  New hitsound
•  New maps ps37ctf, ctf_gate1, and am_galevish
•  Space Marine should no longer crash on old client
•  Chaingun works in unlagged now
•  Non-free texture folders from previous release removed