Setup Setup Setup

Being a reviewer lets me see a lot of different types of program setups. This in turn has made me curious about the typical setup creator and what's mostly used. I recently took a look at Setup Factory to get a feel for what a high end product (around $400) gives to its users.

I know it has a library of over 250 functions and an easy-to-use Action Wizard, but for $400 it had better cook me breakfast as well because I was quite curious as to why this piece of software was so expensive.

I guess I should get right into it then.

What separates them from the rest

Not unlike many other setup utilities, you start with a basic project. You fill in your necessary project name, product name, version, and website and you go onto the following fields. I guess I should say that here's where Setup Factory separates itself from the rest. The amount of options you have with S.F. is astounding. After inputting your typical information, (license agreement, etc.) Setup Factory set itself apart. This was especially made clear to me when I got to the point of choosing my theme for the whole setup.


They've taken a deeper look at what it means to have a setup that works correctly and to also have one that's aesthetically pleasing. They've put a lot of effort into giving their users the ability to create something that's not only functional, but pleasant to look at. I'd almost say it's like a first impression. Mark Twain said it best when he said "you only get one chance to make a good first impression."

As I continued with the project, I found that I could choose from a variety of supportable languages as well. I also gave me the option to tell it which Visual Basic (VB5.0 or 6.0) my program supported, if any. Along with the 'install setup' I was able to choose if I wanted uninstall support, along with install log creation and admin privilege warnings.

After I'd made my setup list, it brought everything together and gave me the option of creating the project in either a web format, floppy (1.44MB), CD (650/700MB), DVD format, or my own custom format. As I was building my setup file, it sort of lagged toward the end, but it finished building a 270MB file in about four minutes.

The features that were at my disposal didn't stop there either. It has a lot of little nifty tools along with it like MD5 serial number security, expiration checking, multilingual support, authenticode signing, shortcut icons, registry editing, HTML-based project reports, uninstaller, spell checker, runtime modules, Visual Basic project scanner, silent install mode and support for automated builds.

For admins, the most useful of these things can be the silent install. This can save a lot of time and hassle when you've got a lot of users to deal with. The new scripting engine can give a lot of freedom to project creators who want to have more of a hands-on say in what their programs look like.

I think the part that stands out from using this program is its ability to make it easy on its users. You don't need to be a power user to play around with all the tools you have at your disposal. Practically anyone can make registry changes, call DLL functions, execute programs, start and stop services, interact with web scripts, enumerate processes, download files and more. Your options are definitely not limited when working with S.F.

After playing around with some of the tools at my disposal and installing my recently made program, I had no problems opening the .EXE looking at what was inside, making sure everything was in running order and finally taking it off my system. The only thing I saw that was slightly odd was that when I went to Add/Remove Programs, it didn't mention the size of what I was uninstalling. Aside from that, I'd have to say that my time working with Setup Factory was a lot easier than I had previously thought.

The Good
This program, albeit from its price, has everything you might want from a Setup Creator. It's got so much functionality you probably won't be able to use everything at your disposal. All the bells and whistles you could hope for.

The Bad

The price is unbelievable. Yes you've got other products out there that probably don't have nearly all the options that Setup Factory has, but if you take something like NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) or some other smaller applications, you can still achieve a decent program setup at almost no cost. I also heard that the product potentially refuses to run if you have CompuWare's SoftICE installed on your system, but I wasn't able to test this out since I didn't have SoftICE installed. Aside from the user review, there was another person that said they had trouble with the same option.

The Truth

If you want the themes, the options, the bells and whistles, you shouldn't look anywhere else. You've got everything you could want and more. IndigoRose has put a lot of time into this program and it shows. It also shows that they want to get heftily repaid for all the effort. Give it a free shot and if you don't like it, there's no reason why you have to spend that $400.

Check out the screenshots below.