Good alternatives to installshield?

We need to deploy a small Visual C++ application (< 1Mbyte) to our client's PC. We need installation functions such as registry key adding and future software update notification for client. It appears InstallShield Express is a good candidate since it can support both functions. However, Installshield's pricetag is a bit on the high side with price ranges from $500-$5000.

Are there any good alternatives for InstallShield that you guys can recommand? Thanks for help,

NSIS is the best, but you will have to learn the scripting language. It's free, however. There are some GUIs out there that provide a convenient wrapper to NSIS that you could look for.

Inno Setup. Like NSIS it is free and there are also graphical front ends to it that make life easier.

Heres a link to a list of free install makers.

Displeaser

I looked at Inno Setup and NSIS, they look good but don't seem to support upgrade notification to clients (it's on the request feature list for NSIS).

Just curious, would it be possible to implement this function into the script?

thanks again!

You'd have to look at the things you can do with the scripting language, i haven't explored it fully, having moved to linux development. If there are functions for connecting to the internet etc. or pluggin in a DLL, i don't see why not.