app-builder-lib

NSIS

⚠️ It is developer documentation. If your are looking for usage guide, see user documentation.

NSIS stands for Nullsoft Scriptable Install System. electron-builder utilizes a customized version of it and uses NsisMultiUser plugin to handle installation for single user or all users on the computer.

Some links

http://www.mathiaswestin.net/2012/09/how-to-make-per-user-installation-with.html

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd378457(v=vs.85).aspx#FOLDERID_UserProgramFiles

https://github.com/Drizin/NsisMultiUser

NSIS vs Inno Setup — it is not easy to choose because both are far from ideal, e.g. inno also doesn't have built-in per-user installation implementation — http://stackoverflow.com/questions/34330668/inno-setup-custom-dialog-with-per-user-or-per-machine-installation.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2565215/checking-if-the-application-is-running-in-nsis-before-uninstalling

One-click installer: http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=300479

Localization (l10n)

For translators, the strings to be displayed are included in assistedMessages.yml and [messages.yml]https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/blob/master/packages/app-builder-lib/templates/nsis/messages.yml).

As for other strings in NSIS, head to electron-userland/electron-builder-binaries or the upstream repository on Sorceforge.

GUID

See docs.

We use UUID v5 to generate sha-1 name-based UUID.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3029994/convert-uri-to-guid https://alexandrebrisebois.wordpress.com/2013/11/14/create-predictable-guids-for-your-windows-azure-table-storage-entities/ https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows/pull/658

Compression

NSIS LZMA compression is slower and worse compared to external 7za compression. Slower because 7za is multi-threaded, worse because LZMA codec implementation is outdated and BCJ2 filter is not enabled. Difference for test app — 4 MB (before: 36.3 after: 32.8).

And compression time is also greatly reduced.

Since NSIS is awesome, no disadvantages in our approach — compression is disabled before File /oname=app.7z "${APP_ARCHIVE}" and enabled after (it is the reasons why SOLID compression is not used). So, opposite to Squirrel.Windows, archive is not twice compressed.

So, in your custom NSIS scripts you should not use any compression instructions. Only SetCompress if you need to disable compression for already archived file.