Nullsoft Scriptable Install System

Nullsoft Scriptable Install System in short NSIS is a professional open-source tool for the development of Windows installers. It is designed to be as small and flexible as possible and is therefore highly suitable for internet distribution.

An installer is not only the first experience of a user with your product, many software problems can also be solved by providing reliable installation tools. NSIS allows you to create stable, quick and user friendly installers that are capable of installing, uninstalling, setting system settings, extracting files and more. With the NSIS scripting language you can implement any custom logic you want.

The large collection of plug-ins, scripts and software in the Developer Center helps you to build full featured installers and provides a solution for almost every scenario.

Features:

• Generates self-contained executable installers
• Support for ZLib, BZip2 and LZMA data compression (files can be compressed individually or together)
• Uninstall support (installer can generate an uninstaller)
• Customizable user interface (dialogs, fonts, backgrounds, icons, text, checkmarks, images etc.)
• Classic and Modern wizard interface
• Fully multilingual, support for multiple languages (including RTL langauges) in one installer. More than 40 translations are already available, but you can also create your own.
• Page system: You can add standard wizard pages or custom pages
• User selection of installation components, tree for component selection
• Multiple install configurations (usually Minimal, Typical, Full), and custom configuration
• Installer self-verification using a CRC32 checksum
• Small overhead over compressed data size (34 KB with default options)
• Ability to display a license agreement in text or RTF format
• Ability to detect destination directory from the registry
• Easy to use plug-in system (lots of plug-ins for creation of custom dialogs, internet connections, HTTP downloading, file patching, Win32 API calls, etc. are included)
• Installers can be as large as 2GB
• Optional silent mode for automated installations
• A preprocessor with support for defined symbols, macros, conditional compilation, standard predefines
• A lovely coding experience with elements of PHP and assembly (includes user variables, a stack, real flow control, etc.)
• Installers have their own VMs that let you write code that can support:
• File extraction (with configurable overwrite parameters)
• File/directory copying, renaming, deletion, searching
• Plug-in DLL calling
• DLL/ActiveX control registration/unregistration
• Executable execution (shell execute and wait options)
• Shortcut creation
• Registry key reading/setting/enumerating/deleting
• INI file reading/writing
• Generic text file reading/writing
• Powerful string and integer manipulation
• Window finding based on class name or title
• User interface manipulation (font/text setting)
• Window message sending
• User interaction with message boxes or custom pages
• Branching, comparisons, etc.
• Error checking
• Reboot support, including delete or rename on reboot
• Installer behaviour commands (such as show/hide/wait/etc.)
• User functions in script
• Callback functions for user actions
• Completely free for any use. See License.
• More

What is new in this release:

• Major Changes:
• Added support for Windows 7 installers - use RequestExecutionLevel, just like with Vista (bug #2725883)
• Added WinVer.nsh Windows 7 and Windows 2008 R2 support
• Installers now identify as Terminal Services aware (IMAGE_DLLCHARACTERISTICS_TERMINAL_SERVER_AWARE) so $WINDIR will no longer be under the user's profile when installing on Terminal Services
• Less UAC annoyance in Add/Remove control panel (bug #2697027)
• Minor Changes:
• Added wildcard and /nonfatal suppport for !delfile (RFE #1505425)
• Fixed !searchparse (bug #2680110)
• Fixed input validation for CreateFont (bug #2801024)
• Fixed NSIS Menu handling of working directory (bug #2781948)
• Fixed Vista issues with shell folders ($DOCUMENTS, $PROFILE, etc.) on root directories (bug #2138075)
• Minor documentation improvements (including bug #2705878, bug #2606525)
• Use SW_SHOWDEFAULT for ExecShell by default (bug #2796189)
• Modern UI:
• Call finish page show function only after the page is fully initialized (bug #2720968)
• Fixed translation of uninstaller directory page (bug #2690112)
• Fixed installation type text position in components page (patch #2801317)
• Fixed missing MUI_INNERTEXT_COMPONENTS_DESCRIPTION_TITLE (bug #2788620)
• Translations:
• Updated Indonesian (patch #2790571)
• Updated Portuguese BR (patch #2642542)
• Build System:
• Fixed some GCC warnings

What is new in version 2.44:

• Major Changes:
• Fixed a bug introduced in 2.43 causing script build issues with some icons (bug #2572035)
• Minor Changes:
• Fixed nsDialogs CreateTimer documentation (bug #2595565)
• Global labels didn't work when declared in unused functions (bug #2593369)

What is new in version 2.43:

• Minor Changes:
• Added WinCore.nsh, WinDef.nsh, WinError.nsh, WinNT.nsh and WinUser.nsh for more useful Windows definitions
• Fixed a crash caused by !packhdr compressing resources (bug #2533431)
• Minor documentation improvements (including bug #2564005)
• Modern UI 2: Fixed MUI_DIRECTORYPAGE_BGCOLOR (bug #2494528)
• Utilities and Plug-ins:
• Banner: Fixed installer showing on the background when Banner was used in .onInit
• MakeNSISW: Added Ctrl+K hotkey for build cancelation (RFE #2557392)
• nsDialogs: Added NSD_SetIcon (patch #2500960)
• Translations:
• Added Esperanto
• Bulgarian fixes
• Plug-in API:
• Added VS2008 project files
• Better installation of header and library files under POSIX - see INSTALL file for more information
• Header and library files were moved to a subdirectory named nsis to prevent collisions
• RegisterPluginCallback now returns int instead of BOOL for a wider range of error reporting
• Build System:
• Added fink's mingw prefixes (bug #2495138)
• Fixed BOOL build issue on OS X (bug #2497290)
• Fixed iconv dependency detection on OS X (bug #2494539)
• Fixed Solaris builds (patch #2497172)

What is new in version 2.42:

• Major Changes:
• Deprecated /NOUNLOAD and SetPluginsUnload to make scripts simpler and safer (patch #1912699)
• Useful header functions no longer require usage declaration and different syntax for uninstaller functions
• Revamped plug-in API now comes in the form of pluginapi.lib, API version information and more common functions (patch #2359978)
• Minor Changes:
• Added !searchreplace preprocessor command for compiletime text search/replaces
• Added support for registration of EXE COM servers (RFE #2315740)
• Minor documentation improvements (including bug #2386821)
• nsDialogs: Added timer support (patch #2135855)
• WinVer.nsh: Added IsServer, IsWin2003R2, IsStarterEdition, OSHasMediaCenter and OSHasTabletSupport (patch by Anders)
• WinVer.nsh: Fixed 95/NT4 ambiguity (bug #2053642)
• WinVer.nsh: Proper Windows XP x64 detection (bug #2053700)
• WinVer.nsh: Windows 2008 detection support (RFE #1949260)
• Translations:
• Minor English grammar improvements (bug #2323452)
• Build System:
• Full System compatibility with GCC (patch #2193442)

What is new in version 2.40:

• Major Changes:
• Service pack macros added to WinVer in version 2.39 now work (bug #2070708, patch #2095363)
• Minor Changes:
• Added initial folder selection option for nsDialogs::SelectFileDialog (patch #2016003)
• Fixed GetParameters handling of MBCS characters (bug #2067946)
• Fixed incorrect ${NSD_OnBack} documentation (bug #2059651)
• Modern UI 2: Set focus to readme checkbox on the finish page (bug #2110357)
• Translations:
• Portuguese corrections (bug #2086988)
• Simplified Chinese corrections (patch #2056906)