One folder in, one setup .exe out. Keep your configuration, artwork and application files in a
project folder; Nano Installer builds them into a single Windows installer carrying your logo, your
pages and your wording. Nothing to host, and nothing your users install first.
Early implementation, not ready for production distribution. Test in a disposable VM: an install writes files and registry entries. Setups are unsigned, and Windows 7 support is untested — every build targets Windows 7 SP1 x64 and later, but no setup has ever been run on a real one. See production status.
The first page of examples/TapTap, built and photographed by scripts/capture_setup_snapshots.ps1:
what the runtime drew, not a mock-up.
Nothing to install and nothing to compile — every release publishes the builder, the runtimes it needs and a digest for each file.
# 1. Download the release files into one folder
# 2. Point the builder at a project folder
.\nano-installer-native-x64.exe build --project C:\path\to\my-projectThe setup lands in dist/<installer_name>. Prefer clicking? nano-installer-gui-x64.exe from the
same release drives the same engine. Full walkthrough:
quick start.
| One file to ship | A single setup .exe with your icon, version info and branding |
| A clean machine | No runtime and no framework: the setup carries what it needs |
| Your pages | XML layouts drawn with your own backgrounds and buttons |
| Eleven UI languages | Built in, and one JSON file adds another |
| Progress and finish pages | The current step is named live, and the finish page can start what it installed |
| Upgrade, rollback, update packages | Re-running upgrades in place, a failed step rolls back, and --delta-from ships only what changed |
| Uninstall | Takes back what it wrote, and keeps user data by default |
| Administrator rights | Asked of Windows only when the project says so |
| Scripts and plugins | Rhai install and uninstall steps, plus DLLs built against include/nano_plugin.h |
| Screen readers | The page, the focus, typed text and live progress are announced, over MSAA and IDispatch |
| GUI or command line | The Windows 10+ visual builder, or the same engine driven from CI |
| Also a package | --msi wraps the setup for an estate that deploys through Windows Installer |
MyApp/
installer_config.json product name, version, install path, shortcuts, output name
layouts/ XML pages: welcome, progress, finish, uninstall
assets/ backgrounds, buttons, icons (1x and @2x variants)
locales/ one JSON file per language
scripts/ optional install and uninstall logic
payload/app.7z your application files, zipped or 7z-compressed
Paths are relative to the folder, so a project moves anywhere. The quickest start is to copy
examples/TapTap and replace what is inside — the shape of the configuration,
not the artwork, which belongs to its rights holders.
Quick start · Configuration · Page layout · Languages · Custom steps · Plugins · Visual builder · Migrating from NSIS
Site: https://nick2781.github.io/nano-installer/, and Chinese pages live in
docs/zh-CN. Every page is also a Markdown file, so
docs/llms.txt indexes them for an agent and
docs/llms-full.txt is the English documentation in one file. Architecture,
build and release, Windows compatibility, the test plan and the production status are in
docs/en for maintainers.
CONTRIBUTING.md has the working tree, the checks a change passes and the rules this
repository keeps, including that work reaches main through a pull request.
Issue forms ask for the version and the run log, because a report without
them costs a round trip. Security problems go through
private vulnerability reporting, not an issue; that page also lists what is knowingly
not a vulnerability here. Everyone in this repository is held to
CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md. The Rust source is MIT licensed, while the
trademarks, images and copy of examples/TapTap belong to 易玩（上海）网络科技有限公司 and are not
MIT-licensed — the screenshots in assets/ are captures of that example.