INSTALLSHIELD EDITIONS
Compare Features Across InstallShield Editions
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CREATE PROFESSIONAL INSTALLATIONS
InstallShield Premier | InstallShield Professional | |
|---|---|---|
The most powerful, capable, and widely used solution among installation developers worldwide. Get immediate access to our new Suite Installation functionality, installation streaming, 64-bit enhancements and more. | A powerful yet easy-to-use solution, ideal for both novice and seasoned installation developers. | |
| Support for 64-bit InstallScript Installers | Yes | Yes |
| Support for Windows High Contrast Mode | Yes | Yes |
| Full ARM support for InstallScript setups on Windows 11 | Yes | Yes |
| Support for Windows Server 2025 | Yes | Yes |
| Support for Azure Key Vault signing using Custom Signing | Yes | Yes |
| Support for .NET Core in Custom Actions | Yes | Yes |
| Ability to create hourly scheduled tasks. | Yes | Yes |
| Support for signing using a custom sign tool | Yes | Yes |
| Support for Custom Extensions in MSIX Projects | Yes | Yes |
| Create MSIX Packages Checking for Updates Using App-Installer | Yes | Yes |
| Modern and Simple Installers | Yes | Yes |
| Support for Cloud Builds | Yes | No |
| Enhanced support for Windows 11 and Windows Server 2022 | Yes | Yes |
| Full ARM Support | Yes | Yes |
Support for fonts in MSIX Ability to install fonts in an MSIX package so that the fonts are available for other apps in the machine. | Yes | Yes |
Build InstallShield Projects in an Azure DevOps Pipeline InstallShield provides a native Azure DevOps Extension to build InstallShield projects in Azure DevOps pipelines. You can use in both a private agent or a Microsoft hosted agent. Note: Node Locked licensing only supports private agents. Use of hosted agents require a concurrent license. | Yes | No |
| MSIX – Modification Packages | Yes | Yes |
| MSIX – Support for MSIX Core | Yes | Yes |
Pure 64 installers Build pure 64-bit installers for Basic MSI and Suite installers. | Yes | Yes |
| MSIX Bundles | Yes | Yes |
| MSIX – Support for Services | Yes | Yes |
| AWS CloudHSM-based Digital Signing | Yes | Yes |
| Simplified Builds Within Docker | Yes | Yes |
| Automated Patch Design | Yes | Yes |
| Create Windows® Installer (MSI) Installations | Yes | Yes |
| Create Windows Installer Patches (MSP) | Yes | Yes |
| Create MSIX packages | Yes | Yes |
| Easily convert any MSI file into an MSIX package | Yes | Yes |
Create InstallScript (Setup.exe) Installations Use our proprietary scripting language - InstallScript to fully script each and every component of your installer. | Yes | Yes |
Create Advanced Bootstrappers with Suite Installations Use the suite project to bundle multiple installers like .exe, .msi, .prq, .appv or .msix - all into a single package so that your users can have a single consistent experience. | Yes | No |
Streaming Installations that Download Installation Components as Needed Create light weight installers by configuring the Suite project to download selected components on the fly from a web location rather than bundling everything with your installer. This keeps the installer very light. | Yes | No |
| Install/Upgrade Multi-Instance Product Installations | Yes | Yes |
Check for the Latest Version of a Setup Any Time an Installation is Run Use our suite updates feature to alert your users for latest version of the installers before the deployment begins. | Yes | Yes |
Advanced UI Editor Leverage our WYSIWYG editor to fully customize the installer experience and preview the experience during development. | Yes | Yes |
| Windows Installer Dialog Editor | Yes | Yes |
| End-User Dialog Themes for Windows Installer-Based Projects | Yes | LIMITED |
| Billboard Support for Custom Branding | Yes | Yes |
| One-Click Installations from the Web | Yes | Yes |
| DLL, EXE, VBScript, and JScript Custom Actions | Yes | Yes |
| Extend Suite/Advanced UI Projects with C# and InstallScript Actions | Yes | No |
| PowerShell Custom Actions | Yes | Yes |
| Managed-Code Custom Actions | Yes | Yes |
| Easily View MSI Table Relationships' | Yes | Yes |
| Support for Microsoft® Certificate Requirements including SHA 1 and SHA-256 | Yes | Yes |
| Design DPI-Aware Installations | InstallShield Premier  | |
DEVELOP AND DEPLOY GLOBALLY
InstallShield Premier | InstallShield Professional | |
|---|---|---|
| Multilingual Support – 35 Languages | Yes | No |
| Unicode Support in Most InstallShield Views | Yes | Yes |
| Create Pure 64-Bit Installations (Windows Installer) | Yes | Yes |
| Install 64-bit Applications | Yes | Yes |
| Install Windows Device Drivers Using DIFx 2.1.1 | Yes | Yes |
| Support for .NET Framework 4.5 (32-bit and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-Tier Installation Template | Yes | No |
| Install Web Applications to Microsoft® Azure™ and Microsoft® IIS using Microsoft Web Deploy | Yes | No |
| PowerShell Suite Actions for Server Configuration | Yes | No |
| Enable Windows Roles and Features During Your Installation | Yes | No |
| Deploy Databases to Microsoft SQL Server/Oracle/MySQL/Azure SQL Databases | Yes | Yes |
| Database Import Wizard | Yes | Yes |
| Deploy Websites to IIS 8 with SSL Certificates | Yes | Yes |
| IIS Web Services Support | Yes | Yes |
| IIS Tools for Web Apps | Yes | LIMITED |
| XML File Updating | Yes | Yes |
| Configure Windows Users and Groups | Yes | Yes |
SAVE TIME AND DEVELOP EFFICIENTLY
InstallShield Premier | InstallShield Professional | |
|---|---|---|
| Ability to create hourly scheduled tasks | Yes | Yes |
| Integration with Visual Studio 2022 | Yes | Yes |
| Install Packages from Windows Package Manager | Yes | Yes |
| Identify what existing InstallShield projects require change to meet Microsoft MSIX standards | Yes | Yes |
| Provision Virtual Machines from the InstallShield IDE for Testing Installations | Yes | No |
| Monitor for COM Extraction (32-bit and 64-bit) | Yes | Yes |
| Registry-Free COM Registration (Application Manifests) | Yes | Yes |
| COM+ Support | Yes | Yes |
| Library of Redistributable Prerequisites for Windows Installer Installations | Yes | Yes |
| Library of Redistributable Prerequisites for InstallScript Installations | Yes | Yes |
| Associate Prerequisites with Features | Yes | Yes |
| Prerequisite Editor | Yes | Yes |
| Network Repositories to Share Dialogs, Scripts and Templates with Team Members | Yes | No |
| Local Repositories to Share Dialogs, Scripts and Templates Across Multiple Projects | Yes | Yes |
| Automate Events at Build Time | Yes | No |
| Reusable Project Templates | Yes | Yes |
| LZX Compression Option (Windows Installer Projects) | Yes | Yes |
| Display Installation Progress on the Taskbar | Yes | Yes |
| Easily Edit Runtime Installation Strings | Yes | Yes |
| Specify Custom Icon and Version Resource Properties | Yes | Yes |
| Virtual Machine Detection | Yes | Yes |
| Easily Edit XML Files During Installation | Yes | Yes |
| Easily Edit Text Files on the Destination Machine During Installation | Yes | Yes |
| Easily Create System Searches | Yes | Yes |
| Mark Files for Deletion as Part of an Installation Through Interaction with MSI RemoveFiles Action | Yes | Yes |
| Enforce End User License Agreement (EULA) Reading Before Installing | Yes | Yes |
| Call .NET Assemblies from InstallScript | Yes | Yes |
| Command-Line Builder | Yes | Yes |
| Complete Project Debugging | Yes | Yes |
| Source Code Control Integration | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Team Foundation Server Integration | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft Build Engine (MSBuild) Support | Yes | Yes |
| Microsoft® Visual Studio® 2019 Integration | Yes | Yes |
| InstallShield Command-Line Interface | 5 INSTANCES | 2 INSTANCES |
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