Introduction 

 Buy Now! 

 Our Guarantee 

 Download 

 Contact 

 Testimonials 

 Features & Benefits 

 Demo 

 Screen Shots 

 .NET Framework 

 Newsletter 

 Language Pack 

 BDE 

 Version history 

 Affiliates 

DeployMaster™ Version History

Software Quality at Just Great Software

Don't let the long lists of issues on this page make you think our products have a lot of problems. Quite to the contrary. All the bugs listed below are bugs that we have fixed. Many of these are corner cases reported by only one or perhaps a handful of our customers. Other software companies often don't spend any effort addressing such issues, much less list them publicly. We take pride in producing high quality software, and often release free updates to ensure you won't have any problems with our software.

Your purchase also comes with one year of free major upgrades. So don't worry if there might be a new major upgrade around the corner just because it's been a while since the last major upgrade. If there is one around the corner, you'll get it free, without having to ask. (But you can keep the old version if you prefer.)

If you ever hit a snag with DeployMaster, check here if you have the latest version. If you do, simply report the issue via email and we'll help you out as soon as we can.

Subscribe to the Just Great Software email newsletter or the Just Great Software RSS newsfeed if you'd like us to notify you of any product updates and other developments.

DeployMaster 3.2.0 - 18 June 2009

New features:

• %COMMONDOCUMENTS% named folder that translates to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents on Windows XP and to C:\Users\Public\Public Documents on Vista.
• %LOCALAPPDATAROOT% named folder that translates to C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data on Windows XP and to C:\Users\username\AppData\Local on Vista.

Improvement:

• 3rd Party: If a 3rd party setup does not specify a download URL, installation detection file, or installation detection registry key, and the 3rd Party setup is not included in the installation package created by DeployMaster, then the installation package no longer prompts that the 3rd party setup needs to be installed.

Bug fixes:

• 3rd Party: Confirming the installation by checking a registry value did not work correctly. Only checking a registry key without checking a value worked correctly.
• 3rd Party: Installers that specified 3rd party setups failed to install anything when using the /silent command line parameter.
• Clicking the (...) button to browse for a folder with the folder set to a drive letter such as "c" or "c:" without a path or typing in such a drive letter, or typing in a path on a drive that does not exist, caused an "error setting path" error.
• Finished: Named folders such as %APPFOLDER% were not expanded when used in the command line parameters to the application to be run when finishing the installation.
• Uninstall: Shortcuts sometimes get .PIF instead of .LNK extension. In that case, the uninstaller did not properly delete the shortcut.

DeployMaster 3.1.0 - 9 February 2009

Improvements:

• Base the file name of the temporary installer (previously dpy.exe) on the file name of the main installer, to avoid false positives with careless anti-malware software.
• Create portable installations even if the user does not have administrator rights.
• More sample translations on the Language tab.

Bug fix:

• Shortcuts to console applications ran the application invisibly.

DeployMaster 3.0.1 - 5 August 2008

Improvement:

• Build: DeployMaster now indicates that it's done adding 3rd party setups with an extra line in the log. It also indicates the combined size of the 3rd party setups.

Bug fixes:

• 3rd party: Clicking the Select button to pick a file to confirm installation caused a "list index out of bounds" error.
• 3rd party: If the 3rd party installation program could not be found while building the installer, the build was aborted with a string build error, instead of completing the build without embedding that installer and showing a warning about that.
• 3rd party: If you specified a file name for the complete setup package with integrated 3rd party installers on the Media tab, but not for the setup without 3rd party installers, DeployMaster would generate a faulty setup.exe that would crash with an access violation or out of memory error. Also, the Test Installation Program button showed the folder containing the setup program instead of starting the setup.
• 3rd party: Specifying a URL other than the default for downloading the .NET framework caused the link in the installation program to point to http://www.just-great-software.com instead of the URL you specified.
• Project: If the Default Application Folder was left blank (which is permitted if you're not installing anything into %APPFOLDER%), the setup program would crash with an access violation.

DeployMaster 3.0.0 - 14 January 2008

New features:

• Ability to detect and install the .NET framework, either from dotnetfx.exe supplied along with the installer (e.g. on a CD), or downloaded from a user-configurable URL.
• Ability to run 3rd party installers before the DeployMaster installation. The 3rd party installer can be included inside the self-extracting setup created with DeployMaster, or copied separately along with the DeployMaster setup.exe.
• Create Portable Installation: Optional button in the main installer screen to copy the application's files to a removable device without modifying the host computer.

Improvements:

• Advanced Options should not allow empty folders to be specified, or syntactically incorrect paths to be used. It should force the user to correct the paths before proceeding.
• If the target file already exists, clear its read only attribute if it is set, so the file can be overwritten.
• The installer now warns if available disk space is insufficient.
• The setup program should not become unresponsive during long installs, so it doesn't appear like the installer is locked up.
• Vista: Replace the help file with an HTML Help file so it will work on an out-of-the box Vista installation.

Bug fixes:

• Files to be installed into %COMMONAPPDATAROOT% were instead installed into %APPDATAROOT%.
• Vista: Checkboxes and buttons in dialog boxes no longer disappear when you press the Alt key.

Additional strings were added on the Language tab. If you made your own translation, you'll have to translate the new strings. You'll find them at the bottom of the list.

DeployMaster 2.8.1 - 6 June 2006

Note: Though DeployMaster 2.8.1 was released before the public release of Windows Vista, it is fully compatible with Windows Vista. We have fully tested it with the final release of Windows Vista, and found it fully compatible.

Bug fixes:

• When browsing for a network drive in the installer, the selected path wasn't automatically used.
• The new Vista-compatible uninstaller introduced in version 2.8.0 didn't work at all on a small number of Windows XP systems. Setup packages built with 2.8.1 now include 2 uninstallers, one for Vista, and one for all previous versions of Windows.

DeployMaster 2.8.0 - 19 April 2006

New features:

• %COMMONAPPDATAROOT% folder placeholder to install into C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data

Improvements:

• Registry: DeployMaster can now create registry items under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT
• Setup: Checkboxes now blend in better with the gradient background
• Setup: The installer and uninstaller now contain a manifest telling Windows Vista they need administrator privileges
• Setup: The installer now uses the visual style of the current Windows theme on Windows XP and Vista

DeployMaster 2.7.0 - 6 August 2005

New features:

• Appearance: Select the font the installer should use. The main purpose is to select a font that supports the script you're using on the Language page, since the default font does not support all scripts.
• Registry: Create values with %SETUPFOLDER% and %SETUPDRIVE% to store the folder or drive from which the setup was launched.

Improvements:

• Double byte character set compatibility. The second byte of certain characters in Far East languages was interpreted as a backslash by DeployMaster
• Finished: The uninstall shortcut in %APPMENU% no longer includes the version number. This prevents multiple uninstall shortcuts if you turn off the option to delete obsolete files on the Update page.
• Print button below the readme and the license agreement in the setup program is now hidden when no printer has been installed.
• When browsing for an installation folder in the setup program, the user can now browse through network neighborhood.

Bug fixes:

• The select components button was not displayed by the setup program if the first component was not user-selectable (version 2.6.2 only).
• File Types: Ctrl+V (paste) did work in the extension field.
• Files: The option to register .TLB files was not preserved when saving and reloading a setup script.

DeployMaster 2.6.2 - 28 August 2004

New features:

• Command line option to save the build results when building from the command line; e.g.: DeployMaster.exe /b setup.deploy /log buildlog.txt

Improvements:

• Folder names such as %APPFOLDER% are now expanded in the parameters of shortcuts
• Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel will now show a "click here for support information" link and show the exact installed size for applications installed with DeployMaster

Bug fixes:

• 2.6.1: The select components button was never displayed by the setup program, even if there were selectable components
• Silent installation caused the installation to fail with an access violation if the installer used a background covering the entire screen (which is invisible during a silent installation)

DeployMaster 2.6.1 - 17 February 2004

Improvements:

• Files: The option to never uninstall a certain file is now allowed in combination with "overwrite if newer" as well as "never overwrite".
• Identity: Serial numbers and/or registration codes can now be verified without a DLL and without storing them into the registry.

Bug fixes:

• Update: Installation of a patch installer (new capability of version 2.6.0) was not prevented if the base application was not installed at all.

DeployMaster 2.6.0 - 3 February 2004

New features:

• Update page: DeployMaster can now create "patch" installers. These are installation packages that contain only files that are new or different from those shipped in a previous version of the software. DeployMaster will check whether a proper previous version of the software is already installed, before installing the patch. If not, DeployMaster will show a message that you provide (e.g. instructing the user to install the CD version first, and then install the downloaded patch).
• Identity page: As an alternative to creating a support DLL to store and validate identity information such as serial numbers, DeployMaster can now automatically store this information into the registry and do simple verification of serial mumbers, etc.
• Files page: Option to never uninstall certain files. These files will stay behind, even after your software is uninstalled.
• Media page: Installation packages can now be split across multiple CDs, or split into parts of any size to your liking.
• Appearance page: Option to hide the Advanced Options Installation button.
• Your software can now be installed silently by passing the /silent command line parameter to the setup.exe you created with DeployMaster.

DeployMaster 2.5.5 - 19 June 2003

This version fixes three problems that were introduced with version 2.5.4. Except for the first one, these problems occur only in very few situations. They did occur on any of our test systems.

• After clicking on one of the buttons on the welcome screen, and clicking on the Back button to go back to the welcome screen, would make "More information" and "Select components" visible again even if they were supposed to be hidden.
• The uninstaller would cause error messages to be displayed when trying to unregister certain DLLs. However, the uninstallation would proceed properly.
• On certain Windows 98 systems, DeployMaster would try to install shortcut icons into an "All Users" folder that does not exist on Windows 98 (but somehow still reported by Windows to exist).

DeployMaster 2.5.4 - 22 May 2003

New features:

• On the Registry page, you can now tell DeployMaster to create binary registry values in addition to string and DWORD values.
• %SYSTEMDRIVE% is a new placeholder for the drive on which %WINDOWS% is located (i.e. the drive onto which Windows itself is installed). You can use it for the default installation folder on the Project page, and you can use it on the Files page to directly install files into the root of the system drive.

Improvements:

• The setup program will now hide instead of disable unused buttons on the welcome screen.
• Shortcut icons placed into the %APPMENU% (via %STARTMENU% and %PROGRAMSMENU%) and %DESKTOP% folders will now be placed into the "all users" folder rather than the current user folder under Windows NT4/2000/XP. This means your application's shortcuts will be visible to all users rather than only the administrator performing the installation.
• You can now add more than one shortcut to the same file in a single folder. Note that if you do so, you must specify a different name for each of the shortcuts. You can do that below the tree structure on the Files page. You will probably also want to specify different parameters for each of the shortcuts, to make them functionally different. The parameters are the command line parameters that are passed to the executable the shortcut points to.

DeployMaster 2.5.3 - 31 March 2003

New features:

• To install files into the user's "My Documents" folder, use %MYDOCUMENTS% on the Files page.
• If the folders on the Project page are absolute folders, warn that this may cause the installation to fail if the drive letter is not available on the user's system.
• Warn if files are being installed under %APPMENU%, etc. and shortcuts under %APPFOLDER%, etc
• By adding %APPDATAROOT% on the Files page, you can now install files under the user's "Application Data" folder.
• DeployMaster will now register TLB files. If you do not want a TLB file to be registered, uncheck the option for each TLB file on the Files page
• When selecting "overwrite if newer", DeployMaster will now explain that for files containing a version resource (like .exe and .dll), the version resource is used to compare versions rather than the date/time stamp of the file.

Bug fixes:

• On the Project Page, a folder like "c:\" was not accepted as a valid folder when building the project.
  Note that using hard-coded paths like c:\ will cause your application to fail if the user's computer does not have a c: drive (or the drive is not visible to the active operating system). It will also annoy people who don't want to mess up their c: drive. Using %PROGRAMFILES% etc. is far more user friendly. But if you must install to c:\, DeployMaster can do it (if the drive exists, of course).
• Deleting file types did not enable the Save button.

DeployMaster 2.5.2 - 24 January 2003

Improvements:

• When browsing for folders in the Advanced Options Installation, you can now also browse network drives that have been assigned a drive letter. DeployMaster was already capable of installing your software onto network drives. But in the past, your users had to type in the installation folder manually. Now, they can easily browse for the installation folder.
• The folder tree for browsing for folders in the Advanced Options Installation will now display foldes using their actual capitalization, instead of all uppercase.
• DeployMaster can now install your software on network drives that are not mounted using a drive letter. Your users can do so by typing in the UNC path in Advanced Options Installation. Previously, DeployMaster could not handle UNC paths and could only install to network drives if they were mounted using a drive letter.

Bug fixes:

• Registry values using named folders such as %APPFOLDER%\myprogram.exe would get a double backslash if the user specified a folder with a trailing backslash in Advanced Options Installation.
• Typing in a single (drive) letter in the field above the folder tree when browsing for a folder in the Advanced Options Installation will no longer hang the installation program.
• Removed harmless "List index out of bounds" error message that would sometimes occur when closing DeployMaster.

DeployMaster 2.5.1 - 10 October 2002

Improvements:

• The fields in the installation software asking the end user to provide identity information now use a Courier font to make it easier to type in registration codes or serial numbers.
• When the bitmap selected on the Background page does not exist, DeployMaster will now properly build the package without using the bitmap, and add a warning to the build report, instead of aborting the build with a cryptic "file not found" message.
• DeployMaster will now prevent you from entering characters that are not allowed in Windows folder names when creating a subfolder.
• Characters that are not allowed in Windows file names are also not allowed as names for shortcuts and URL shortcuts. DeployMaster will now prevent you from typing in those characters in the fields for the names of shortcuts and URLs on the Files page.

Minor fixes:

• Back button in Advanced Options Installation did not work if none of %APPFOLDER%, %APPCOMMONFOLDER% and %APPMENU% were specified on the Project page.
• Selecting a different icon file for a shortcut did not mark the project as modified (i.e. enable the "save" button)
• If a file uses a folder like %APPCOMMONFOLDER%, that folder must be specified on the project page. If not, the build will not abort with an error rather than building a non-working installer.
• The second and following file types no longer get a non-printable character prepended to their description during installation.

DeployMaster 2.5.0 - 15 July 2002

Improvements:

• Some of the buttons in the installation program got new captions: "Deploy it" became "No-Questions-Asked Installation", "Select Components" became "Select Components and Install", and "Advanced Options" became "Advanced Options Installation". The buttons were renamed to make sure that people installing your software will realize that clicking any of those three buttons will actually start the installation, and that the first button will not ask any technical questions. Note that you can change any string in the installation program, including the button captions, on the Language page in DeployMaster.
• A warning will be displayed when there are no shortcuts in %APPMENU% in any component. The developer is probably expecting these to appear automagically.

Fixes:

• Deleting a component on the Files page that was required by another component, would cause DeployMaster to crash when trying to build or save the project.
• Adding an empty string value to the Registry page would cause an access violation in the installer. Now, the installer will properly add the empty string value to the registry.
• The Reboot Now button in the setup program did not work under Windows NT/2000/XP.
• Deleting an item on the registry page did not enable the Save button.

DeployMaster 2.4.1 - 27 May 2002

• Changing the setting "What if a file in this folder already exists?" for a folder containing one or more shortcuts, would corrupt the shortcuts. Selecting the shortcut or trying to save the project would cause an Access Violation.
• Ampersands (&) in the company and application names were shown as underlines in the installation program.

DeployMaster 2.4.0 - 25 March 2002

• New feature: Option to not create certain file associations by default. (The user can change the default via Advanced Options.)
• New feature: Option not to use the gradient fill for the installation program window.
• Bug fix: Under Windows 9x, the installation window would not close automatically when the option to automatically launch the program was selected, even if the option to show a message after installation was not selected.

DeployMaster 2.3.1 - 28 February 2002

• New feature: The user can now print the readme file and license agreement in the installation program.
• Bug fix: LoadIdentity() in the support DLL was always called with NULL parameters.

DeployMaster 2.3.0 - 8 January 2002

• You can now change the file from which the icon for a shortcut or a URL is extracted. This file can be any file that is part of your installation package.
• If the user changes the installation folder via Advanced Options when reinstalling the same application (perhaps a later version), the deployment log is now also moved to the new folder.

DeployMaster 2.2.0 - 28 November 2001

• On the registry tab, you can now set the default value for a registry key by adding a value item to it with the name '(Default)'
• The calculation of the percentage of the free disk space the installation will use was sometimes had an incorrect sign (i.e. the number was negative)
• If the readme file is a .txt or .rtf file, it is now shown inside DeployMaster like the license agreement. Other file types are still launched externally as before.
• When files are deleted by the installer (components are being removed, etc.), it now checks whether folders have become empty and delete those folders if so.
• When reinstalling the same package again, installed but then deselected components now show a red cross indicating they will be removed. (This change is purely cosmetic, to make it clearer to the user what will happen.)
• You can no longer include characters that are not allowed in filenames in the company name, project name and project version. These would cause trouble when creating shorcuts containing these items.

DeployMaster 2.1.0 - 9 May 2001

On the Registry page, there is now an option for each key to have it completely removed (including values and subkeys) upon uninstallation.

DeployMaster 2.0.2 - 23 April 2001

• If you added the readme and license files from the Project page to the Files page as well, and upon installation the user's temp folder already contained files with the same names, those files would be installed instead of your files.
• Changing the checkboxes on the Finished tab didn't activate the Save button.
• When installing an existing shared file, the reference count in the registry is now forced to be at least 2. This makes sure that the uninstaller will not remove the file if another installer or uninstaller did not properly update the reference count.
• Loading a DLL and checking if it exports a DllRegisterServer routine would cause DeployMaster to crash with certain DLLs. Therefore, DeployMaster no longer checks if a DLL or OCX actually exports a DllRegisterServer routine. It will always present the option to call that routine after installation. Activating it for a DLL that does not export such a routine, has no effect.

DeployMaster 2.0.1 - 13 March 2001

An unfortunate bug slipped through in version 2.0.0. Clicking on the (...) buttons in Advanced Options in the setup program, to choose the folder to install the application in, caused a "property does not exist" error. The installation folder could still be selected by typing it in, but not by picking it from a tree view. This has been fixed.

DeployMaster 2.0.0 - 9 March 2001

Important note: More text items have been added to the Language tab. If you have made your own translation, make sure you do not forget to translate the new items. They have been added at the bottom.

Plenty of new features:

• Adding files to the setup by dragging them from Windows Explorer and dropping them on the tree view in the files tab.
• Register ActiveX controls. Any library (DLL, OCX, etc.) such as an ActiveX library that exports a DllRegisterServer routine can now be registered by DeployMaster.
• You can now create shortcuts to URLs on the Files page.
• You can now set the "what if the file exists?" option for all the files in a folder at once, by changing the setting for the folder.
• Option to automatically add an item to %APPMENU% to uninstall the application.
• Button on the Files page for adding a folder and all its contents to the setup in one go.
• Browse button on the Media page to be able to select a folder where the deployment file(s) are to be placed.
• UnDeploy: File associations for which the command starts with a % are now restored with the type REG_SZ_EXPAND instead of REG_SZ. Some file associations (like *.txt with Notepad.exe) use this.

Improvements:

• Significantly improved the error handling of the installer. When an error occurs, the user will now be able to choose between "continue" and "abort".
• The uninstaller can now handle truncated .log files which may have been created by a failed installation.
• It is now possible to select no action at all on the Finished page.

Minor bug fixes:

• The help file was searched for in the current folder instead of the application folder.
• The uninstaller now properly removes all folders that have become empty after uninstallation.
• An extra line with English text was being added to language files. This did not cause any problems.

DeployMaster 1.0.2 - 17 November 2000

Bugs fixed:

• Adding a long list of files or shortcuts took forever. Files will be added a lot faster now and a progress meter will be shown.
• The working folder for shortcuts will now be set to the folder the file is in, instead of being left empty.
• The on/off setting for the text shadow on the Background page was ignored by the setup program. Shadows were always shown.
• The gradient background on the installation window (not the optional screen-filling background) will now only be shown on high color systems. On low color systems, the window's background will be solid as the gradient background would be dithered which makes the text unreadable.

DeployMaster 1.0.1 - 20 October 2000

Bug fix: Reboot buttons did not work

Added feature: Special folder names such as %APPFOLDER% are now also expanded in registry values. (The special folder name must be at the beginning of the registry value: "%APPFOLDER%abc" is OK, "abc%APPFOLDER%" is not)

DeployMaster proves to be a very stable product right from the first release.

DeployMaster 1.0.0 - 27 September 2000

First public release of DeployMaster. It has already been used successfully to package Just Great Software products for several months, so you should not encounter any serious problems.