This morning I received a fantastic notice in my email, Caphyon has released version 8.2 of their Advanced Installer product. If you're not familiar with Advanced Installer and develop any windows applications you should be. I discovered them last year while researching for options to the standard Visual Studio 2010 Setup project, which just didn't work for me. I needed something stronger, that required less of my time writing custom actions (or better yet, no time at all) and was priced reasonably. Advanced Installer wasn't the first installer I tried, but it was something i purchased immediately after I tried it. The Professional version of Advanced Installer has features that I couldn't find in versions that cost twice or four times what I had just paid for it.

Advanced Installer was already feature rich, but version 8.2 adds a number of exciting and interesting new additions. Here are just some of the highlights in this new version (note that some new features may be specific to particular versions of the product):

• Sharepoint Project Wizard
• ASP.Net Project Wizard - a nice addition for web application developers who are looking for a solution to package and re-sell their apps AND be able to configure the web server to run the app correctly.
• Plug-in Wizard for Adobe products
• Ability to check and download the latest version of the product while installing - a great feature to ensure that users installing your app are installing the most recent version and don't have to waste their time with a second upgrade or another installation right after they just installed your product.
• New pre-defined folders for "Printer Shortcuts", "Recent Items", and "Network Shortcuts"
• Tomcat 7 support - a must for Java Server Pages developers who are building distributable web applications - Only available in the Java, Enterprise, and Architect Versions.

There are also numerous bug fixes and enhancements. Enough that this is the sort of upgrade worthy of paying for (if I wasn't on a maintenance plan already that is). Visit www.AdvancedInstaller.com for more information. The notes for the 8.2 update are also available.