Chief's Installer
Pro v5.40 for Win32
(c) 1994-2003, Prof. Abimbola A. Olowofoyeku (The African Chief)
Chief's Installer Pro for Win32 (hereinafter referred
to as ChiefPro-32) is an AWARD WINNING
program for the installation of Windows 9x/ME,
and Windows
NT/2000/XP applications (i.e., an "off-the-shelf" installation
and
uninstallation suite for Win32 applications). This program will easily
install
applications from all types of distribution media. It features a number
of
built-in compression and archiving facilities, including ZIP,
and
LZSS (LZ77) and Huffmann compression, custom bitmaps, 3rd party
DLLs,
start menu icons, desktop shortcuts, splash screens, scripting, GUI
IDE,
uninstall, etc. ChiefPro-32 also provides full support for installing
the
Borland Database Engine (BDE). Please see below for further
details
of features.
What the customers said:
- "We have been using
Chief's
InstallPro with all our products for over four years. It's easy to
learn
and update for new projects, and the occasional bugs we located and
enhancements
we requested were provided within days. Expensive brand-name software
don't necessarily mean the best deal."
Stewart DIBBS, President, VYSOR Integration Inc., Quebec, Canada
- " Thanks for
such a
great, inexpensive product. We've shipped [figure omitted] copies of
our
software using your installation tools and I cannot tell you in words
how
happy we are to be using your product. Recently I have tried other
tools
(InstallShield, Wise, etc...) and still find yours to be as good and
better
in some respects."
James R. Anderson, Inscomm Software, Inc.
Downloads
1. chief540.zip (18th November 2003)
2. Read the FAQ (Chief's Installer Pro Frequently
Asked Questions).
3. Chief's Installer LITE v5.34 (23rd
May
2002)
On-line Registration
For on-line (credit card) Registration, click here: 
This is a sample screen of Chief's Installer Pro-32
INSTALLATION
Please run SETUP.EXE and follow the instructions.
FEATURES
1. You can install into any combination of the
following;
[a] a target directory, and any number of
subdirectories under it's directory tree
[b] the Windows directory
[c] the Windows SYSTEM directory
[d] the Windows NT and Windows 98 SYSTEM32 directory
[f] any other specified directory
2. A maximum of 64 installation disks are supported.
ChiefPro-32
will prompt for the disks as they are required.
3. ChiefPro-32 will optionally offer to put the
destination directory into the "PATH" statement in AUTOEXEC.BAT
4. ChiefPro-32 will optionally create desktop
shortcuts, icon folders, icons, and Start Menu items for any supplied
file(s) - .EXEs, README files, etc.
5. ChiefPro-32 will optionally run any supplied
program(s) during the installation, as part of the installation process.
6. ChiefPro-32 will optionally run any supplied
program(s) immediately after the installation is complete
7. ChiefPro-32 allows you to supply on-line for the
installation. You have to create a Windows help file called
WINSTALL.HLP. This help file can be accessed by clicking on the "HELP"
button. A simple one is supplied. You can either use that, or create
your own. If no WINSTALL.HLP file is found
in the path, then the "HELP" button is removed from the Install window.
8. ChiefPro-32 will check whether there is sufficient
space
on the target drive - based on information which you supply as to how
much
disk space your application requires. If you need extra temporary disk
space
for the installation, ChiefPro-32 can check for this also.
9. ChiefPro-32 will make entries in any INI (or other
text)
file(s) specified by you. Unlimited entries can be made.
10. ChiefPro-32 provides support for several
languages.
11. ChiefPro-32 provides support for PARTIAL
INSTALLATIONS of programs. In this respect, you can have up to 10
installation options.
12. ChiefPro-32 provides support for displaying a
banner in the background, and for specifying the text of the banner,
the font to
use used for it, the font size, the color of the text, the color of the
background,
and a brush to paint the background.
13. ChiefPro-32 provides support for displaying
custom bitmap
files, optionally stretched to fill the screen.
14. ChiefPro-32 will optionally check the disks being
inserted
by the user to verify that they are the correct ones.
15. ChiefPro-32 provides an UNINSTALLER, which can be
used
to uninstall any program that was installed with ChiefPro-32.
16. ChiefPro-32 will check the target directory for
the existence of any copy of each file being installed, and will
optionally prompt
the user for overwrite permission.
17. ChiefPro-32 will check for version information in
existing
copies of shared binary files, and for date stamps in non-shared files.
18. ChiefPro-32 will use the 3D dialog effects in the
CTL3D
DLLs.
19. ChiefPro-32 provides support for restarting
Windows if any active shared file was overwritten. A dialog asking for
confirmation appears automatically if any active shared file was
overwritten during the
installation. The text on this dialog can be changed by the
$RESTARTWIN-MESSAGE reserved word.
20. ChiefPro-32 provides support for displaying a
README file to the user when the installer is executed. The file should
be called WINSTALL.TXT.
21. ChiefPro-32 provides support for making entries
into the the Registration Database, by the reserved word $REG-DATA.
22. ChiefPro-32 provides limited support for
installing TRUETYPE fonts.
23. ChiefPro-32 provides a rich and powerful batch
language and support for those who want to get their hands dirty ;)
24. ChiefPro-32 provides support for ZIP archives -
the UNZIP command is compatible with PKZIP(tm) 2.x ZIP archives
25. ChiefPro-32 provides a full Win32 Integrated
Development Environment (IDE) for developing and managing installation
projects.
26. ChiefPro-32 provides a compiler for compiling INF
file
and ChiefPro-32 batch files
27. ChiefPro-32 is fully compatible with all 32-bit
versions of Windows, such as Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows
NT/2000.
28. ChiefPro-32 provides support for displaying
messages (up to 10) during the course of the installation. All the
messages must be
in an ascii file called WINSTALL.MSG. Each message section must begin
with
a [#] (e.g., [#1]), and cannot be more than 8 lines long (max: 45
characters
per line). The messages are displayed in turn, automatically (at the
rate
of 100 divided by the number of messages - as per the percent meter).
29. ChiefPro-32 provides (limited) support for
installing files from certain subdirectories of the source directory
(e.g., on a cd-rom or a network drive). The scheme is to use each such
subdirectory as a pseudo floppy disk - i.e., the files in the
subdirectory will be specified on a
$DISK# line, and then the subdirectory itself will be called $DISK#
(e.g., $DISK2 = for the files which will be on the $DISK2 lines). Thus
the installer will automatically look for directories names $DISK#
under the source directory, to install $DISK# files from. This includes
$DISK1 as well.
30. ChiefPro-32 supports the "automatic uninstall"
features of Windows 9x and Windows NT/2000.
31. ChiefPro-32 supports the splitting of huge files
into
smaller chunks which can fit onto a floppy disk, and for rebuilding the
files
again
32. ChiefPro-32 supports the playing of AVI files and
WAV
files during the course of the installation (through batch commands)
33. ChiefPro-32 provides support for installing the
Borland Database Engine.
34. ChiefPro-32 provides support for displaying a
welcome message, and a copyright message (which the user has to agree
to in order to be able to proceed with the installation).
35. ChiefPro-32 supports a built-in compression
engine, which uses LZSS (i.e., LZ77) compression. Note that the
compression algorithm is LZ77, not LZW - so there are no patent issues.
36. ChiefPro-32 supports another built-in compression
engine,
which uses the ZIP compression algorithm, and is compatible with
PKZIP/PKUNZIP(tm)
37. ChiefPro-32 supports the creation of
self-extracting archives (.EXE) from projects, for easier distribution
of your application. These SFX archives can optionally be password
protected.
LICENSE
Chief's Installer Pro-32 IS NOT FREE
SOFTWARE. Chief's Installer Pro-32 is SHAREWARE.
REGISTRATION FEE
The (promotional)
REGISTRATION FEE is £44.00 (U.K. Sterling); or $64.99 (US); or
equivalent.
SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTION
You may distribute the package freely to FTP sites,
Bulletin Boards, Shareware/Freeware/Public Domain archives, CD-ROMS,
Magazine Cover Disks and CD-ROMS, etc. Shareware disk vendors also may
also freely freely distribute the package.
Distribution of the package in any form (other
than as the installation program for your Windows applications), is
subject to
ALL the following conditions;
[1] ALL the files which I have supplied must be
included,
and
[2] NO ATTEMPT must be made to modify or alter
ANYTHING in any of the files,
and
[3] You must not charge ANYTHING for distributing
this
package (disk vendors may charge a reasonable fee, not exceeding $5
(US)
- or equivalent - for media and duplication).
Please note the disclaimers below.
DISCLAIMER
I DO NOT WARANTEE ANYTHING CONCERNING ANY OF THE
PROGRAMS OR FILES WHICH MAKE UP "CHIEF'S INSTALLER PRO FOR WIN32". I
ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE OF ANY KIND, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, LOSSES OF A PHYSICAL, MENTAL, SOCIAL, FINANCIAL,
MARITAL, OR OF WHATEVER NATURE, RESULTING FROM THE USE, OR THE
PURPORTED USE OF CHIEF'S INSTALLER PRO FOR WIN32", OR ANY OF THE FILES
IN THE PACKAGE, FOR ANY PURPOSE WHATSOEVER. I
DO NOT EVEN WARANTEE THAT THE PROGRAMS WILL NOT KILL YOU. YOU USE
CHIEF'S INSTALLER PRO FOR WIN32 ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK, AND YOU
SUPPLY IT TO YOUR
CUSTOMERS, FRIENDS, FAMILY, ACQUAINTANCES, OR ENEMIES, ENTIRELY AT YOUR
OWN
RISK. IF THESE TERMS ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE TO YOU, THEN PLEASE DELETE ALL
THE
FILES FROM YOUR DISKS IMMEDIATELY AND PERMANENTLY.
Comments to: African_Chief[at]bigfoot [dot] com
Prof. A. A. Olowofoyeku (The African
Chief)
November 2003
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