Building, Testing, and Distributing Installations

InstallShield 2026 Express Edition

Once you have configured the features, files, shortcuts, registry entries, end-user dialogs, and other elements of your installation project, you are ready to create and build a release for your installation. Building a release packages the content of your installation, creating a disk image that you can copy to your distribution media and distribute or deploy as needed.

Testing is an essential part of creating a reliable installation. InstallShield enables you to selectively test run just the end-user interface portion of a release. You can also run your installation by simply clicking a button in InstallShield; when you run an installation by using this method, your installation executes exactly as it would on an end user’s machine. All files are transferred, shortcuts and registry entries are made, and the user interface is displayed.

The last step in creating your installation is to distribute it to a specified location. This location may be on a network drive, floppy disk, or different location on a local drive. When you distribute your installation, the disk image created when you built your installation is copied to the location that you specify.