I can't complain too much because 12 months ago i reviewed a lot of installers for the company i work for and found Wise Installation Studio was the most suitable for the job at the time.
Pet peeves
- No decent help out there
- The official forum is really bad for searching
- There doesnt seem to be any nice collections of scripts available.
- Setting at scattered acrosss several interfaces, and the websites keep resetting/ disabling every time the project is saved.
- Removal of websites seems a bit hit-n-miss as to if it removes it entirely.
Top tips
- Save your work frequently, back it up or use a repository like subversion so you can revert back to a previous version
- Customise your page views....
Make yourself a custom list of pages (down the left hand site) that only lists the pages you need. It saves time staring blankly at the screen for the feature you want to use.
- Remember the IIS options are split between the dialog boxes and the Website [Details]. SOmetime , i find you can't access these, (Adding a new website and then removing it refreshed the display and lets you get at them)
- Add files with the 'Update installation as files are added; option.
This saves time later on updated releases.
- Add some tool tips.
For IIS and sql installs this little extra info improves the installer interface a lot and makes it easier for your end users.