I’ve been using the same installer for Diving Log for about 10 years now, but recently it caused more and more problems. Unfortunately the tool wasn’t really often updated during the last few years, so it lacks a lot of features you expect from such a program. Then it causes a lot of problems on Asian Windows versions where it just stops with an error. But also on Western Windows systems some minor problems occurred from time to time, mostly during the self-extraction process.
So I’ve been looking for a new installer application for Diving Log for quite some time and it was not easy to find a suitable application. First of all there is a huge price range from about $90 to $2500 (InstallShield) and I’ve really tried every product I could find. There are some expensive products available which are barely usable in my opinion. In the end, the cheapest product was surprisingly the best solution for Diving Log. It is easy to use but still powerful with all required features. The tests with some Asian users were also successful, and today I’ve uploaded the new installer to the English download site (this is still version 5.0.4, so no need to install it when you already have this version).
New Installer
One additional problem caused by the change of the installer was, that I need now my own code signing certificate in order to sign the finished installation file. Otherwise the UAC dialog on Vista or Windows 7 would be the ugly “Unknown Publisher” warning. Certificates are usually very expensive (e.g. $1300 for 3 years at VeriSign), but luckily there are also some less expensive resellers out there. Today, after sending them many documents to prove my identity, I’ve finally got my certificate. When you see in future this UAC prompt with my name “Sven Knoch” you know the installer is genuine:
UAC Dialog