Creating an installer for my game

[timofiend]

So I have made a small tech demo using Irrlicht for a game project I am doing for my course, but I need to hand it in on disc in an installable format. I have absolutely no experience with installers, and have no idea where to begin with making this game run from a disc on another PC.

Could anyone give me an idea of where to start, or point me in the direction of some useful info to help me with this?

I assume I need to place all the resources (image/mesh files etc) in a location that would then be accessible for the game, but I am not sure of anything else, do I need to have Irrlicht installed on another PC for the game to run? Is there anything really important I have to do for it to run?

Thanks in advance.

[ChaiRuiPeng]

please post what platform(s) you are distributing to.


for windows:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/d ... laylang=en

there are tuts everywhere on the net, should be pretty straightforward, don't hesitate to ask any other questions you might have.

EDIT: no you don't need to have irrlicht installed on the host machine, since you can't install irrlicht, it isn't an application, it is a library

EDITEDIT: you will probably also need the irrlicht.dll alongside your application, for windows env. apps.

[timofiend]

Yeah sorry should have specified, will just be on Windows. I have the Irrlicht and IrrKlang dll's in my debug folder at the moment, do I need to have all the C++ source and project files included somewhere, or would it literally be the .exe file from my project folder, along with .dll files and the resources such as images/meshes/levels?

And yeah my bad, I didn't really mean installed, but just meant did the computer need the libraries to be somewhere on it, but I guess not, thanks!

Would I be able to do the same thing using something like Setup Generator? It seems a lot simpler than the windows installer, but then again I don't know much about either.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I noticed windows installer 4.5 isnt supported on Window 7, will I have much of an issue trying to create an installer if I want to be able to install on XP? As I am using windows 7, but I am pretty sure my prof's PC will be XP.

Thanks

[serengeor]

Yeah sorry should have specified, will just be on Windows. I have the Irrlicht and IrrKlang dll's in my debug folder at the moment, do I need to have all the C++ source and project files included somewhere, or would it literally be the .exe file from my project folder, along with .dll files and the resources such as images/meshes/levels?

And yeah my bad, I didn't really mean installed, but just meant did the computer need the libraries to be somewhere on it, but I guess not, thanks!

Would I be able to do the same thing using something like Setup Generator? It seems a lot simpler than the windows installer, but then again I don't know much about either.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and I noticed windows installer 4.5 isnt supported on Window 7, will I have much of an issue trying to create an installer if I want to be able to install on XP? As I am using windows 7, but I am pretty sure my prof's PC will be XP.

Thanks

Every llibrary thats has dll and was used in you project should be near executable or it wont start. As for resources, you should have somewhere nearby the executable, but in another folder(and may be have subfolders for different kinds of resources?).

As for installer:
http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php

[hendu]

NSIS and bitrock are pretty popular for building installers.

[user-r3]

Try Inno Setup
http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php

The Wizard makes it really easy to use.

[timofiend]

Thanks for the help, I got it working in the end, just wrote a batch file that copied all the necessary files to a specified folder on the user's c drive, had to download a couple of dlls i was missing but it was fine. Cheers