How to make simple cutdown platform installer

Question

We are currently looking into simplifying our installer process. Currently our product requires to run 1 or more installers that are written in installshield. What we are looking at now is making a new cutdown "platform" installer which is going to be as small and thin as possible and this will allow the user to select what they need and the platform installer will download needed packages and run them silently under the hood.

My question is, this seems to be a common trend (initial download of installer is light), what is the best method/platform to write this type of initial installer on? Was thinking a really light .net wpf/winform app. Just wondering if anyone has any advice?

Thanks

Answer 1

You don't mention the version or edition of InstallShield that you're using, but if you have a recent version of Premier, take a look at Suite/Advanced UI projects. They offer per-package downloads (and non-downloading variants), controlled by feature selection in a single UI out of the box. At the very least it should let you prototype the experience you want to offer.

If you have a recent Professional edition instead, you can get an idea what it would look like, but you will be limited to a single "primary" package in the Advanced UI project.

(Since this started to look like an upsell, I should mention that I am paid to work on InstallShield.)