Inno Setup is a powerful, free installer for Windows programs. First released in 1997, it has since evolved to rival and even surpass many commercial installers in both features and stability, providing a robust solution for developers and creators.
Key features include a user-friendly wizard interface and the ability to create a single EXE file for easy online distribution. The software supports disk spanning, full uninstall functionality, and customizable setup types. It includes integrated file compression, support for installing shared files and OCX controls, and automatic creation of Start Menu shortcuts, INI file entries, and registry keys.
Create powerful installations without limits. Our program lets you include an unlimited number of files, shortcuts, and registry entries, giving you complete control over your project. However, note that Inno Setup requires memory for each script entry. For example, approximately 120 bytes of memory are needed for each entry in the [Files] section.
Inno Setup Key features:
- Offers extensive support for installing 64-bit applications on 64-bit editions of Windows, including compatibility with x64, ARM64, and Itanium architectures.
- Extensive support for each administrative and non-administrative installation.
- Supports the creation of a single EXE installer for easy online distribution and supports disk spanning for multi-part installations.
- Standard Windows wizard interface.
- Customizable setup types, e.g., Full, Minimal, and Custom.
- Complete uninstalling capabilities.
- File Installation: Includes built-in support for Deflate, Bzip2, and 7-Zip LZMA/LZMA2 compression methods. The installer can compare file information, replace in-use files, use shared file counting, register DLLs/OCX controls and type libraries, and install fonts.
- Allows creation of shortcuts in any location, including the Start Menu and desktop.
- Creation of registry and INI entries.
- Support for multilingual installs, together with right-to-left language support.
- Enables execution of selected programs at different stages of installation.
- Support for passworded and encrypted installs.
- Supports digitally signed installers and uninstallers, including dual-signing with SHA-1 and SHA-256 certificates.
- Silent installs and uninstalls.
- Unicode installs.
- We have integrated the preprocessor option for advanced compile-time customization.
- Includes an integrated Pascal scripting engine option for advanced run-time installation and uninstallation customization.
- The complete source code is available from GitHub.
- Tiny footprint: only about 1.3 MB overhead with all features included.
- All features are documented.
- Used by Microsoft Visual Studio Code and Embarcadero Delphi.
The Inno Setup QuickStart Pack includes Inno Setup along with optional third-party add-ons, such as the ISTool script editor and Inno Setup Preprocessor. Although these add-ons are not official or required for general use, they can make using Inno Setup easier.
Software Name – Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| ✓ Creates professional Windows installers with support for custom installation workflows, shortcuts, registry entries, and uninstallers. | ✗ Requires learning the software's scripting language, which may be challenging for users new to installation packaging. |
| ✓ Uses a powerful scripting engine that gives developers precise control over installation behavior and advanced setup tasks. | ✗ Does not provide a modern drag-and-drop visual installer designer like some commercial setup creation tools. |
| ✓ Builds compact installer packages with efficient compression, helping reduce download size without sacrificing functionality. | ✗ Advanced installer customization often requires manually editing script files rather than using graphical configuration options. |
| ✓ Supports 32-bit and 64-bit Windows applications, multilingual installers, silent installations, and digital code signing for broad deployment flexibility. | ✗ Designed exclusively for Windows installers, making it unsuitable for creating installation packages for macOS or Linux. |
| ✓ Free to use with a mature, well-documented platform backed by years of active development and a large developer community. | ✗ Complex enterprise deployments may require extra scripting and testing compared to premium installer solutions that include built-in automation. |
What's New in Inno Setup 7.0.2 (2026-07-13):
- Added a new Security Measures help topic, which also includes a Supply-chain security section and links to our Verifying Inno Setup Downloads page.
- The security measures, the supply-chain security, and the download verification are not new, but they are now documented and linked in one place.
- Compilation will now fail with an error if an .iss/.isl file contains a byte value or sequence that is not valid in the file’s code page (character set). Previously, invalid bytes were interpreted as U+FFFD characters (the Unicode “replacement character”).
- Pascal Scripting: Improved documentation of support functions RegisterServer, RegisterTypeLibrary, IncrementSharedCount, and ApplyPathRedirRules with updated explanations and examples.
- Fixes:
- ISCC: Reading the script from standard input by specifying – as the script name is now documented again in the help file. Such a script is now assumed to be UTF-8 encoded.
- When a custom style is active, the Do this for the next conflicts checkbox in the File exists, confirm overwrite and Keep newer file? Task dialogs could start checked instead of unchecked (broken since custom styles were introduced in 6.6.0).
- In the previous 7.0 releases, when a 64-bit installer performed a 32-bit DLL registration or shared file reference count operation on a file under {sys}, a SysWOW64 path was erroneously used instead of a System32 path.
- Setup no longer clears the read-only attribute of files and directories matching an [InstallDelete] entry’s wildcard during its initial checks, before installation has started (broken since 5.5.0).
- In Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, Setup no longer shows the accelerator key as literal text, such as “(&R)”, in a few places.
- Extracting a .cab archive no longer always fails with an error (broken since its introduction in 6.5.0).
- Pascal Scripting: Selected TNewCheckListBox items with a custom ItemFontStyle or SubItemFontStyle no longer become unreadable after the list loses focus (broken since its introduction in 6.2.0). Thanks to Sergii Leonov for contributing this fix.
- Updated the 7-Zip and LZMA SDK source code used by Inno Setup to the latest versions.
- Added official Lithuanian, Simplified Chinese, and Traditional Chinese translations.
- Improvements and corrections to all other official translations.
Official Homepage – https://www.jrsoftware.org
Supported Operating Systems:
- Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10, 10 on ARM, 11, 11 on ARM
- Windows Server 2008 R2, 2012, 2016, 2019
Size: 16.2 MB
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