Upgrading from Tarma Installer 2 (QuickInstall)

Tarma ExpertInstall 3

If you are a registered user of Tarma Installer 2 (QuickInstall) and want to upgrade to Tarma ExpertInstall, then please take a moment to read the information below.

You can install Tarma QuickInstall and ExpertInstall side-by-side on the same computer, and use them independently.

See Feature comparison for a comparison of QuickInstall to ExpertInstall and Installer 5.

* Due to the introduction of Windows 7, this product has been discontinued. Technical support ended on 31 December 2010. We recommend that you upgrade to Tarma Installer 5 for full compatibility with all Windows versions.

Target audience

Tarma ExpertInstall is aimed at professional software developers. It has many more features than QuickInstall, but also requires a deeper understanding of installation issues.

If your primary business is not software development and you do not need the more advanced features of ExpertInstall (for example, the ability to create your own installer screens or installer actions), then you might prefer to use Tarma QuickInstall.

Upgrading your license

Your Tarma Installer 2 registration code does not work with Tarma ExpertInstall.

However, registered users of Tarma Installer 2 (QuickInstall) are eligible to buy an equivalent Tarma ExpertInstall license at 20% off the regular price by quoting coupon code TIN2TIN3 at the bottom of the electronic order form that you reach from the Buy Tarma Installer page.

Entering your ExpertInstall registration certificate

Once you have your new Tarma ExpertInstall registration certificate, you can register your copy of Tarma ExpertInstall as follows.

  1. If you haven't done so already, download and install Tarma ExpertInstall on your system. You can install Tarma ExpertInstall on the same computer as Tarma Installer 2; the two programs are independent.
  2. Start Tarma ExpertInstall.
  3. On the main menu bar, choose Help > Register... This opens the License registration dialog box. You can also click the Register... link in the navigation panel on the left.
  4. Copy the registration certificate from the email message to the Windows clipboard. Be sure to copy all lines, starting with the ----BEGIN TARMA CERTIFICATE----- line and ending with ----END TARMA CERTIFICATE----- (inclusive).
  5. Paste the certificate in the Registration certificate field in the License registration dialog box that you opened in step 3.
  6. Click Register.
  7. If all went well, you will see a confirmation dialog box. If there is a problem, an error message will appear instead; retry the procedure and be careful to include the entire certificate.

Tip: In step 4 above, copy the registration certificate from a plain text email window. Do NOT copy from an HTML, Rich Text, or similar formatted email window; this introduces formatting codes that confuse the registration process. All our registration email messages are in plain text format, so normally this shouldn't be a problem.

Differences between QuickInstall and ExpertInstall

See Feature comparison for a feature-based comparison between Tarma QuickInstall and Tarma ExpertInstall. The following table summarizes the major differences between Tarma QuickInstall and ExpertInstall.

  Tarma QuickInstall Tarma ExpertInstall
Basic functionality Installation and removal of folders, files, shortcuts Same, but with many new options
System editing Installation and removal of registry values, INI file values, and environment variables Same, but with many new options. In addition, service installation and removal is now directly supported.
Selective installation Limited to simple conditions Fully feature- and component-based; can be selected at installation time. A full complement of conditions is also supported.
Installer actions Limited custom actions All action sequences can be fully edited; many new custom action types.
Installer UI Limited to predefined Setup.exe stubs All user interface elements and dialogs can be fully edited without special tools. The entire user interface sequence can be redesigned (or removed) if desired.
Installer types Self-extracting or plain file Self-extracting Tarma Installer or Windows Installer (MSI). Multiple parallel build configurations allow you to create both Tarma and MSI installers from the same project.
MSI support None Most MSI 2.0 features are supported, including user interface authoring, merge modules, and transforms.
Multilingual installers US English only, per-language, or multilingual Default language only, per-language, or multilingual
Localization Readme and License texts can be localized; file installation can be made language-specific. The user interface localization is limited to the predefined language DLLs. Virtually any aspect of the installation package can be localized. Localization can be done piecemeal on an item-by-item and language-by-language basis. All user interface elements can be localized.

Project file format

Tarma ExpertInstall can open projects created with Tarma QuickInstall, version 2.21 and later. When opening a Tarma QuickInstall ("Tin2") project, the project contents are automatically converted to the Tarma ExpertInstall ("Tin3") structure and conventions. The original Tin2 project is not modified; when you save a converted project, it is stored in a new Tin3-format project file. Tarma QuickInstall cannot handle Tin3 projects.

To support all new Tarma ExpertInstall features, the Tin3 project file format was completely redesigned. The new Tin3 format is based on XML 1.0 in Unicode encoding; if you used tools to modify the Tin2 project files outside of the Tarma Installer development environment, you will have to adapt them to handle the new format. The following table summarizes the most important differences between the Tin2 and the Tin3 formats.

  Tarma QuickInstall Tarma ExpertInstall
Project file extension .tin .tip
Project file encoding ANSI (using the default code page) Unicode (UTF-8 or UTF-16)
Project file format Derived from Windows .ini files XML 1.0
Localization Limited to the default code page Full Unicode 4.0 support, except for surrogates
Editable? Yes, with any plain text editor or tool Only with Unicode-enabled text editors and tools
Structure Mostly flat, with a few nesting levels Fully nested, follows XML 1.0 syntax rules
Robustness Forgiving of minor errors Unforgiving; requires precise adherence to Unicode encoding and XML syntax rules

Extension DLLs

If you use an extension DLL in your Tarma QuickInstall project, you will have to rebuild the DLL for Tarma ExpertInstall. You also may have to modify it for use with both ANSI and Unicode text strings. However, many tasks that required an extension DLL in QuickInstall can be accomplished with the new built-in functionality of ExpertInstall, so you may be able to simplify or dispense with the extension DLL altogether.