The Games Explorer provides game developers with a secure and attractive way to present their games to users in Windows 7. As part of its extensive Windows 7 support, Advanced Installer offers one-click integration in Games Explorer and registration in Windows Media Center.

When creating MSI setups it is of great help if you can get a head start and don't have to start from scratch. Advanced Installer's powerful import capabilities allow you to leverage your existing installers and projects by importing or converting them into Advanced Installer projects.

The 6.3 version delivers tremendous time-saving features for game developers: one-click integration in Windows Vista's Games Explorer and registration in Windows Media Center.

The 6.2 version focuses on further shortening the time required to create new MSI installers. Import your existing Eclipse projects for your Java products, take advantage of the new wizards to quickly create unified 32/64-bit installers, save ready-to-use templates for your future projects.

Starting with the 6.1 version you can create unified 32/64-bit installers for simpler deployment and lower maintenance costs. The installers run as 32-bit on 32-bit platforms and as 64-bit on 64-bit platforms.

Starting with the 6.0 version you can import third party MSI packages into your own Advanced Installer Projects for further editing and customization. Switching to Advanced Installer has never been easier.

Your ability to address customer issues in a timely and cost-effective manner is crucial to your product's success. Using Advanced Installer patches you can quickly create and distribute application fixes and improvements.

The 5.2 version adds support for installing Control Panel Applets, nested IIS Virtual Directories and many other smaller features and enhancements.

The 5.1 version adds support for sequencing patches, specifying custom connection strings for running SQL Databases Integration, configuring different install parameters per each build and the ability to permit selecting the language when installing multi-language packages.

The 5.0 version greatly simplifies the task of creating MSI installers for applications already using other install engines by offering the ability to painlessly capture and repackage existing installations.

The 4.9 version introduces the ability to share folders on install, support for authoring removable patches and the option to improve .NET applications performance and startup time by precompiling them to native images on install.

The 4.8 version delivers full CD/DVD AutoRun support, complete with a Vista-compliant Autorun launcher. Other Windows Vista installer improvements are Default Programs support, digitally signing patches and enabling least-privileged patching without UAC prompts.

An installer's packaging can vary a lot, depending on the goals it has to meet. The installer may be required to allow running the product directly from a CD or DVD, it may need to be as small as possible for quick online downloads or to be a standard MSI for corporate network deployment. Advanced Installer supports all these scenarios and more, allowing you to select the best installer compression for your situation.

The 4.7 version greatly improves the Windows Installer Vista User Account Control (UAC) experience with automatically added (optional) shield icons on MSI dialog buttons, the ability to digitally sign any individual file included in the installation and to configure required execution levels for executable and MSI files.

Staying up to date with the latest installer events can be challenging, considering the fast pace things usually move at. For your convenience, Advanced Installer is now offering two free web feeds you can subscribe to.

The 4.6 version enhances the Windows Vista compatibility by adding support for IIS 7 and the Restart Manager. Also new for IIS is the anonymous access and authentication control (users and groups) support and a quick introductory tutorial. Other tutorials and how-to's on different topics were also added.

Version 4.5 brings Windows Vista compatibility and support, support for database server configuration and SQL script deployment, Windows Task Scheduler, and the ability to pack features in separate CAB files for on-demand web installs. Also new is a testing tool for Windows Installer searches, a custom edit control for visually editing MSI Formatted fields and many more.

Version 4.4 implements the LZMA compression algorithm in bootstrapper for up to 50% smaller install packages. Also new are the support for creating user accounts and groups, a dependency detector for EXE/DLL files, the Ukrainian and Czech localizations, a set of predefined launch conditions, and many more.

Version 4.3 improves the IIS support with conditional installs, MIME types configuration, default document list specification and an error policy when attempting to install already existing entities. Also new are the multi-file Custom Actions, temporary installation files, multi-volume data DVD support and an wizard to create Launch Conditions based on searches.

Version 4.2 improves the Dialog Editor with a full billboard editor, a repository for dialog sharing and clipboard support for copying controls between dialogs or applications. Also new is a visual Automate Windows Application Updates with Advanced Updater project editor for easily creating localizable updates configuration files, .NET Custom Actions support, a New Driver wizard and JPEG and GIF format support for Java application Splash Screens.