InstallShield 2012 Express Edition User Guide - Knowledge Base ...

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Building, Testing, and Distributing
Installations
Once you have configured the features, files, shortcuts, registry entries, end-user dialogs, and other
elements of your installation project, you are ready to create and build a release for your installation.
Building a release packages the content of your installation, creating a disk image that you can copy to
your distribution media and distribute or deploy as needed.
Testing is an essential part of creating a reliable installation. InstallShield enables you to selectively test
run just the end-user interface portion of a release. You can also run your installation by simply clicking
a button in InstallShield; when you run an installation by using this method, your installation executes
exactly as it would on an end user’s machine. All files are transferred, shortcuts and registry entries are
made, and the user interface is displayed.
The last step in creating your installation is to distribute it to a specified location. This location may be
on a network drive, floppy disk, or different location on a local drive. When you distribute your
installation, the disk image created when you built your installation is copied to the location that you
specify.
Configuring and Building Releases
Once you have designed your project in InstallShield, you are ready to create a release that you can
configure and build to distribute to end users. The release is built according to the options that you set
for it in the Releases view.
Building a Release
Tip: The following instructions apply to releases that are built within InstallShield (without integration with Visual Studio).
For information on building an InstallShield release from within Visual Studio, see Building Releases in Microsoft Visual
Studio.
InstallShield 2012 Express Edition User Guide ISE-1800-UG01 289