An Installation & Distribution Tool by ej-technologies GmbH

Construction of a Distribution Tree
install4j's GUI allows you to:

freely define your distribution tree
In each directory of the distribution tree you can include the contents of entire directories or single files from arbitrary directories on your disk. The definition view and the results view give you full control over the files that will be distributed by your installers.

handle platform-specific differences
install4j offers convenient include/exclude mechanisms that let you tailor your distributions in a platform specific manner.

define file rights for Unix, Linux and Mac OS X
For each element of the distribution tree, you can define custom access rights for installation on Unix-like platforms.

define a fine-grained uninstallation policy
For each element of the distribution tree, you can determine whether you want the uninstaller to remove it or not.

define the overwrite policy
For each element of the distribution tree, you can set a different overwrite police that determines what install4j will do when it has to overwrite files during an installation.

define installation components
You can define groups of files and directories that constitute separate installation components. You can offer the user to select only certain components for installation.

Compilation of Native Launchers
install4j launchers have the following features:

Customized JRE/JDK detection
The executable can detect appropriate Java JREs and JDKs on the target system. You can also distribute your own JRE on demand (see below). The search sequence, error handling and supported JRE/JDK versions are fully customizable.

Flexible classpath construction
The classpath for your Java application can be fully customized to scan directories for JAR files, include specific directories and archives as well as insert environment variables. Customizable error handling allows you to interrupt the startup sequence with a specific error message instead of obscure NoClassDefFound exceptions later on.

GUI, console applications
install4j lets you compile GUI applications or console applications with an associated terminal window.

Service launchers (enterprise edition only)
Services (or daemons) are fully supported by install4j (enterprise edition only). For services, install4j generates service executables on Windows, startup items on Mac OS X and start/stop scripts on Unix/Linux platforms.

Custom working directory
If required you can adjust the working directory to a specific directory relative to the executable. This is especially helpful for console applications which can be invoked from arbitrary directories. This way, you don't need to define fragile environment variables like MYAPP_HOME.

VM parameters file
For every executable, you can create a user editable VM parameters file. In this way, users can adjust VM properties like the maximum heap size.

Enforce single instance only on Windows
On Windows, you can optionally enforce that only a single instance of your application is running. The launcher API allows you to receive notification or further startups together with any command line parameters.

Windows version info resource
install4j can generate a version info resource entry in Windows executable. This version info is displayed for example in the property dialog of the Windows explorer. If you wish to obtain the "Designed for Windows" logo, this is an important requirement.

Splash screen
For GUI applications, a splash screen gives the users of your application an optimum feedback about application startup. Textual status information about application startup and version information can be freely placed on the splash screen. From within your Java code, this status information can be easily updated with one simple call. With install4j's "auto-off" mode activated, the splash screen is hidden, as soon as your application displays a window.

Redirection of stderr and stdout
The standard output and error streams can be redirected to customized files. This gives you access to valuable information like an exception stack trace on stderr that would otherwise be lost for a Java GUI application.

Startup failure detection
No more flashing terminal windows and GUI applications that hang without displaying anything. install4j executables can monitor a stderr output file and display a dialog with helpful information to inform about startup failures.

Custom icon
Install4j uses two image files to create the icon for your launcher. install4j creates Windows icons that are optimized for Windows XP and also have optimal display properties on older versions of Windows. You can also specify your own Windows icon file.