Google Chrome-like downloader and installer [closed]

Question

I am looking for an installer solution like it is used for Google Chrome:

When you click Download, you don't actually download the installer, but a very small Downloader, which then downloads the Chrome Installer, and launches it afterwards.

I know Sweet Labs is developing Ignite, but it is still in closed beta.

Are there any similar solutions out there, which are ready to use?

Answer 1

How about Google Omaha? (Actually used by Google Chrome) It seems to be the thing.

The Omaha project provides a shared autoupdate and install system for Windows client products at Google that works on multiple Windows platforms, including Windows Vista. Goals include the following:

• One autoupdate mechanism which allows teams to roll out updates with no dependencies on other product teams, without having to write their own client or server logic One autoupdate server that handles all autoupdate requests - each product team will not need to roll out and manage their own server One desktop autoupdate client shared by all desktop client software - there will not be separate programs running for each installed application
• A tiny meta-installer which includes the update client (and knows how to install it if necessary) and a reference to the desired application which the update client can then download and install
• One-click web install of applications once the update client is installed
• Support for rich update deploy logic allowing multiple tracks for public release, beta, development and "canary" experiments
• Support for restricted user environments; for example, users without administrator privileges
• Providing a shared runtime for other functionality common to all Google client applications: Crash reporting

Answer 2

Advanced Installer can do that too. It creates a small executable that can launch an MSI package from an URL you specify, so the package downloaded by the user is very small. As a bonus, you can split the application in features, and set it to create one CAB archive for each feature, so the actual install process will download only the CAB files for the features installed, reducing the download time for users that don't install all the features.

To have the user see only a small progress bar instead of full MSI dialogs you just need to tick a checkbox from Install Parameters page.

However, you should now that this feature is available only in the commercial licenses, you need at least a Professional license. You can test it, during the trial period access to all of its features is not restricted.