Make a Simple Setup Program

Ever found that the Visual Basic Application Setup Wizard does not meet your needs? Ever found it too expensive to purchase InstallShield? Don’t despair. Make your own setup program!

This article takes you through the basic steps of making a simple and effective setup program.

Where do you start?

The best place is at the beginning. Open up VB and make a new project. Add a module and a progress bar to the form. Name the progress bar pbProgress.

The first thing we need to do is to code in some constants and useful API calls, as we shall be using the registry to store some information. Add this code to the module:

Option Explicit
'Set Public Constants
Public Const INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE = -1
Public Const MAX_PATH = 260
Public Const ThisApp = "VBS"
Public Const ThisKey = "Setup Master"
Public Const DestPath = "c:vbsquare"

Type FILETIME
   dwLowDateTime As Long
   dwHighDateTime As Long
End Type

Type WIN32_FIND_DATA
   dwFileAttributes As Long
   ftCreationTime As FILETIME
   ftLastAccessTime As FILETIME
   ftLastWriteTime As FILETIME
   nFileSizeHigh As Long
   nFileSizeLow As Long
   dwReserved0 As Long
   dwReserved1 As Long
   cFileName As String * MAX_PATH
   cAlternate As String * 14
End Type

Type SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES
   nLength As Long
   lpSecurityDescriptor As Long
   bInheritHandle As Long
End Type

Declare Function CreateDirectory Lib "kernel32" Alias "CreateDirectoryA" _
(ByVal lpPathName As String, _
lpSecurityAttributes As SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES) As Long

Declare Function CopyFile Lib "kernel32" Alias "CopyFileA" _
(ByVal lpExistingFileName As String, _
ByVal lpNewFileName As String, _
ByVal bFailIfExists As Long) As Long

Declare Function FindFirstFile Lib "kernel32" Alias "FindFirstFileA" _
(ByVal lpFileName As String, _
lpFindFileData As WIN32_FIND_DATA) As Long

Declare Function FindNextFile Lib "kernel32" Alias "FindNextFileA" _
(ByVal hFindFile As Long, lpFindFileData As WIN32_FIND_DATA) As Long

Declare Function FindClose Lib "kernel32" _
(ByVal hFindFile As Long) As Long

'API Calls for Registry
Declare Function RegOpenKeyEx Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias "RegOpenKeyExA" _
(ByVal hKey As Long, ByVal lpSubKey As String, ByVal ulOptions As Long, _
ByVal samDesired As Long, phkResult As Long) As Long

Declare Function RegQueryValueEx Lib "advapi32.dll" Alias "RegQueryValueExA" _
(ByVal hKey As Long, ByVal lpValueName As String, ByVal _
lpReserved As Long, ByVal lpType As Long, ByVal lpData As Any, _
lpcbData As Long) As Long

Declare Function RegCloseKey Lib "advapi32.dll" (ByVal hKey As Long) As Long

'API Call for Control Registration
Declare Function RegComCtl32 Lib "c:windowssystemComCtl32.dll" Alias _
"DllRegisterServer" () As Long

'Set other constants for Registry
Const HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE = &H80000002
Const HKEY_CURRENT_USER = &H80000001
Const READ_CONTROL = &H20000
Const KEY_QUERY_VALUE = &H1
Const KEY_ENUMERATE_SUB_KEYS = &H8
Const KEY_NOTIFY = &H10
Const SYNCHRONIZE = &H100000
Const ERROR_SUCCESS = 0&
Const ERROR_MORE_DATA = 234
Const REG_SZ = 1
Const KEY_READ = ((READ_CONTROL Or _
KEY_QUERY_VALUE Or KEY_ENUMERATE_SUB_KEYS _
Or KEY_NOTIFY) And (Not SYNCHRONIZE))

Const KEY_EXECUTE = ((KEY_READ) And (Not SYNCHRONIZE))

Copying multiple files

A little routine which will save you some time if you have a lot of files with the same
extension in the same directory which you want to copy to your new directory. Add this
function to the module:

Public Function CopyFiles(sSourcePath As String, sDestination _
As String, sFiles As String) As Long
'Declare Variables
Dim WFD As WIN32_FIND_DATA
Dim SA As SECURITY_ATTRIBUTES
Dim r As Long
Dim hFile As Long
Dim bNext As Long
Dim copied As Long
Dim currFile As String

'Make the dir
r = CreateDirectory(sDestination, SA)
hFile = FindFirstFile(sSourcePath & sFiles, WFD)

'Error Handling
If (hFile = INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE) Then
MsgBox "No " & sFiles & " files found."
Exit Function
End If

'Copy the files
If hFile Then
Do
currFile = Left$(WFD.cFileName, InStr(WFD.cFileName, Chr$(0)))
r = CopyFile(sSourcePath & currFile, sDestination & currFile, False)
copied = copied + 1
bNext = FindNextFile(hFile, WFD)
Loop Until bNext = 0
End If

'End Copying
r = FindClose(hFile)
CopyFiles = copied
End Function

The function below is designed to copy all .htm files from one directory to another. Add it to the module and make necessary changes:

Public Function HTMLFiles()
'Declare Variables
Dim sSourcePath As String
Dim sDestination As String
Dim sFiles As String
Dim numCopied As Long

'Set the variables
sSourcePath = App.Path + ""
sDestination = DestPath
sFiles = "*.htm"

'Copy the files
numCopied = CopyFiles(sSourcePath, sDestination, sFiles)
End Function

Copying Individual Files

If you have different file extensions then you can easily copy them using the FileCopy command. Just use this code:

FileCopy "c:windowscontrol.exe", "c:windowssystemcontrol.exe"

Events

Now that the base code is in place we need to actually do something with it. The following code shows a basic order of events. Add it to the form’s Load procedure:

Private Sub Form_Load()
'Load the form
Show
DoEvents

pbProgress.Value = 0
DoEvents

'Declare Variables
Dim Run As String

'Retrieve the Registry settings
Run = GetSetting(ThisApp, ThisKey, "Run", "")
DoEvents

'Check if Run is True
If Run = "True" Then
Unload me
MsgBox "This program has been run before and therefore cannot be run again."
Exit Sub
End If

SaveSetting ThisApp, ThisKey, "Run", "True"
DoEvents

'Make the dir

MkDir DestPath
DoEvents

pbProgress.Value = 33
DoEvents

'Copy the files
HTMLFiles
FileCopy App.Path & "index.html", DestPath & "index.html"
DoEvents

pbProgress.Value = 66
DoEvents
pbProgress.Value = 100
DoEvents

'Quit the setup program
Unload Me
End
End Sub

Distribution

For the program to work correctly you will need to supply to installable files with the
setup program. You can easily do this using a .zip file, using Winzip [ http://www.winzip.com ] or use a program such as the
Self Extracting Setup Wizard [ http://home.epix.net/~sirmango/wizard.html
]

Example

You can download a sample of this setup program at http://www.vbsquare.com/demos/setup-demo/index.html