Best practices to create installer for app with 32-bit and 64-bit EXEs

htome · 19th May 2009, 19:28

Hi there,

Can anyone post a link or some good practices to follow when you need to create an installer for an application that has 32-bit and 64-bit EXEs?

Should we create one installer?

What about naming the EXEs? Should it be myapp.exe and myapp64.exe? or this is completely unecessary as they should be installed under "Program Files (x86)" and/or "Program Files" and have the same name.

Comperio · 20th May 2009, 04:17

I have not seen anything specific to this. I don't see any harm in having everything in one installation other than doing so may make the installation size a bit larger.

You can use the functions inside x64.nsh to determine if running on 64-bit to determine which EXEs to install. (Also, since NSIS is 32-bit, it will try to install things in the 32-bit locations unless you use ${DisableX64FSRedirection}--see the examples in x64.nsh)

As for naming the EXEs, nothing really special there. But perhaps from a troubleshooting standpoint, it might make it easy to see the name and know which file is which if the 64-bit version had "64" in the name somewhere.

19th May 2009, 19:28	#1
htome Junior Member Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 16	Best practices to create installer for app with 32-bit and 64-bit EXEs Hi there, Can anyone post a link or some good practices to follow when you need to create an installer for an application that has 32-bit and 64-bit EXEs? Should we create one installer? What about naming the EXEs? Should it be myapp.exe and myapp64.exe? or this is completely unecessary as they should be installed under "Program Files (x86)" and/or "Program Files" and have the same name.

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20th May 2009, 04:17	#2
Comperio Major Dude Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Oregon Coast Posts: 737	I have not seen anything specific to this. I don't see any harm in having everything in one installation other than doing so may make the installation size a bit larger. You can use the functions inside x64.nsh to determine if running on 64-bit to determine which EXEs to install. (Also, since NSIS is 32-bit, it will try to install things in the 32-bit locations unless you use ${DisableX64FSRedirection}--see the examples in x64.nsh) As for naming the EXEs, nothing really special there. But perhaps from a troubleshooting standpoint, it might make it easy to see the name and know which file is which if the 64-bit version had "64" in the name somewhere.