Upgrading from Tarma QuickInstall 2 or ExpertInstall 3

If you are a registered user of Tarma QuickInstall 2 or Tarma ExpertInstall 3 and want to upgrade to Tarma Installer 5 , then please take a moment to read the information below.

Target audience
Installing QuickInstall and ExpertInstall side-by-side
Upgrading your license
Entering your ExpertInstall registration certificate
Differences between QuickInstall and ExpertInstall
Project file format
Extension DLLs

Target audience

Tarma Installer 5 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.

See Feature comparison for a side-by-side comparison of our installer products.

Installing QuickInstall 2, ExpertInstall 3, and Installer 5 side-by-side

You can install all our installer products side-by-side on the same computer, and use them independently for evaluation or production use.

Upgrading your license

Your Tarma QuickInstall 2 registration code or Tarma ExpertInstall 3 registration certificate does not work with Tarma Installer 5. However, registered users of Tarma QuickInstall and Tarma ExpertInstall 3 are eligible to buy an equivalent Tarma Installer 5 license at a 50% or 80% off the regular price, respectively, by quoting coupon code QUICK2INSTALL5 or EXPERT3INSTALL5 at the bottom of the electronic order form that you reach from the Buy Tarma Installer page.

Entering your Installer 5 registration certificate

Once you have your new Tarma Installer 5 registration certificate, you can register your copy of Tarma Installer 5 as follows.

If you haven't done so already, download and install Tarma Installer 5 on your system. You can install Tarma Installer 5 on the same computer as Tarma QuickInstall 2 and Tarma ExpertInstall 3; the programs are independent.
Start Tarma Installer 5.
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.
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).
Paste the certificate in the Registration certificate field in the License registration dialog box that you opened in step 3.
Click Register.
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 2, ExpertInstall 3, and Installer 5

See Feature comparison for a feature-based comparison between our installer products. The following table summarizes the major differences if you are upgrading.

	QuickInstall 2	ExpertInstall 3	Installer 5
Basic functionality	Installation and removal of folders, files, shortcuts	Same, but with many new options	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.	Further enhancements over ExpertInstall 3
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.	Further enhancements over ExpertInstall 3
Installer actions	Limited custom actions	All action sequences can be fully edited; many new custom action types.	Further enhancements over ExpertInstall 3
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.	Same as ExpertInstall 3
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.	Self-extracting Tarma Installer with multiple parallel build configurations.
MSI support	None	Most MSI 2.0 features are supported, including user interface authoring, merge modules, and transforms.	Only merge module import
Multilingual installers	US English only, per-language, or multilingual	Default language only, per-language, or multilingual	Same as ExpertInstall 3
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.	Same as ExpertInstall 3

Project file format

Tarma Installer 5 can open projects created with Tarma QuickInstall, version 2.21 and later, and those created with Tarma ExpertInstall 3.x.

When opening a QuickInstall 2 project, its contents are automatically converted to the Tarma Installer 5 structure and conventions. The original project is not modified; when you save a converted project, it is stored in a new Installer 5 project file.
When opening an ExpertInstall 3 project, its contents are also converted to Installer 5 conventions. In this case, a backup copy of the ExpertInstall 3 project is saved, while the project file itself is converted to Installer 5 conventions.

The following table summarizes the most important differences between the various project formats.

	QuickInstall 2	ExpertInstall 3	Installer 5
Project file extension	.tin	.tip	.tip
Project file encoding	ANSI (using the default code page)	Unicode (UTF-8 or UTF-16)	Unicode (UTF-8 or UTF-16)
Project file format	Derived from Windows .ini files	XML 1.0	XML 1.0; introduces new tags and omits older ones compared to ExpertInstall 3.
Localization	Limited to the default code page	Full Unicode 4.0 support, except for surrogates	Full Unicode 5.0 support, except for surrogates
Editable?	Yes, with any plain text editor or tool	Only with Unicode-enabled text editors and tools	Only with Unicode-enabled text editors and tools
Structure	Mostly flat, with a few nesting levels	Fully nested, follows XML 1.0 syntax rules	Fully nested, follows XML 1.0 syntax rules
Robustness	Forgiving of minor errors	Unforgiving; requires precise adherence to Unicode encoding and XML syntax rules	Unforgiving; requires precise adherence to Unicode encoding and XML syntax rules

Extension DLLs

If you use an extension DLL in your Tarma QuickInstall 2 or Tarma ExpertInstall 3 project, you will have to rebuild the DLL for Tarma Installer 5. You also may have to modify it for use with both ANSI and Unicode text strings, and for the x64 Windows versions. However, many tasks that required an extension DLL in QuickInstall can be accomplished with the new built-in functionality of Installer 5, so you may be able to simplify or dispense with the extension DLL altogether.