installer

installer

An install program. Installers are programmed/customized by the developer to fit the application requirements. Their primary purpose is to compress the application files into one or more self-extracting files that decompress into the appropriate folders when run. They also make modifications to the Registry in the user's PC and provide post-install options such as the capability to run a program. Commercial installers are comprehensive and sophisticated and may support a full-blown programming language or provide their own scripting language. See install program.

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(operating system)

installer - A utility program to ease the installation of another, probably larger, application. It is also possible for hardware to have an installer accompany it, to install any low level device drivers required. The installer commonly asks the user to enter desired configuration options for the main program or hardware, and sets up various initialisation files accordingly, as well as copying the main program to a hard disc. Some badly designed operating systems require applications to provide an uninstaller because of the number of different files modified or created during the installation process.