War Setup

War Setup is a small Windows application whose purpose is to help you create software installation packages using the WiX toolset from Microsoft. It employs straightforward features for building up MSI files.

The tool adopts a multi-tabbed layout that gives you quick access to the key options of the program, namely Project, Features, Includes and Output. Each of the aforementioned panel comes with its own set of parameters that can be used for altering an MSI package in detail.

You can make use of a project for storing configuration data and save it to a file so you may easily import it in the future.

War Setup helps you design a new project by providing information about the name, version and company/organization, picking the Windows version, enabling administrative privileges in order to run the tool, and choosing the license.

What’s more, you may opt for a normal installation project (MSI file format) or merge module (an installation package without a user interface), make a native 64-bit project, alter the appearance of the installer, and choose the target directory and name.

The application puts at your disposal a set of parameters that are used for adding or removing information about the target utility (e.g. comments, icon, support URL, ‘Read me’ file) and tweaking building options, graphics, interface, localization, license, Visual Studio integration and Windows installer version.

War Setup gives you the possibility to build an installation package characterized by ‘normal’ or ‘full’ options. This means you can let the user select the features that he/she wants to deploy on the system. Each feature added in the installation pack can be altered in terms of name, description and ID.

You can add files using the drag-and-drop support, edit the properties for each item, embed a bunch of files from nested directories based on regular expressions, as well as generate shortcuts.

The application lets you add WiX modules (build action, file system, fragment, reference), include merge modules, and check out the Output dialog for viewing the output from the WiX programs.

War Setup delivers a straightforward suite of features for helping you create MSI packages. It is not as rich-featured as other dedicated applications but you can use it whenever you want to build up installation packages without investing a lot of time and effort into it.