Custom Actions are user-defined actions that enhance the installation process by adding functionalities beyond what is offered by the standard Windows Installer actions. They are necessary when built-in options fail to meet specific installation requirements.

When creating an installer package, you typically provide a default installation folder and allow the users to modify it if required. But what if you need to set the installation path based on a value saved in the registry?

Software products often require additional components to be installed on the target machine to run correctly. Therefore, it’s crucial to ensure that these components are present before proceeding with the application installation.

There are multiple package formats used for deploying Windows applications, the most well-known being the MSI – Windows Installer. If you didn't know already, an MSI is a database that can be easily customized through the use of command line parameters or MST transform files.

Wise Installer was one of the most popular software tool used for creating application installers. It’s discontinued from 2013, but until then not many changes were added to it since the original launch. However, it’s still used to this day by many users in the world. Custom action offer the possibility to extend the logic of the installer by adding scripts, executables, dll’s and many more, so let’s have a look on how custom actions are added in Wise vs Advanced Installer.

The Environment Table is used to create and set the values of environment variables.

There are times when you need to install multiple applications at once, either EXEs or MSIs; we call this a suite installation. Wise Installer was one of the most popular software tool used for creating application installers. It was discontinued in November 2013 and offered a solution for such cases. In this article, we have a look at how you can achieve that in a simple and modern manner using Advanced Installer compared with the old ways of Wise Studio.