InstallBunker For Windows (1.0.0)

Build professional installers for your Windows apps — no external tools required. :)

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InstallBunker

InstallBunker is a Windows (10/11) application that lets you package and distribute your desktop apps as polished, professional installers — without depending on any external tools or runtimes installed on your machine.

Through a clean, step-by-step wizard interface, you configure your package metadata, define installation behavior, and click Build. InstallBunker takes care of the rest: it compiles a fully branded Setup executable and an Uninstaller, ready to ship to your end users.

See the benefits of using InstallBunker:

• Self-contained toolchain: InstallBunker ships with an embedded dotnet.exe inside the Modules/ folder. This means the compiler works out of the box — no .NET SDK installation required on the build machine.
• Wizard-driven UI: A guided, multi-step interface walks you through every configuration option, from app metadata to install scopes and shortcuts.
• Per-User & Per-Machine installs: Let users choose between installing for themselves or system-wide, with configurable default install directories for each scope.
• Desktop & Start Menu shortcuts: Optionally create shortcuts during installation with a single checkbox — no scripting needed.
• License page support: Show a license agreement to the user before installation proceeds, using any plain-text file of your choice.
• Custom branding: Set the installer window title, sidebar app name, version label, and welcome summary to match your product.
• Auto-generated Uninstaller: Every build produces a matching uninstaller registered with Windows, so your app appears correctly in Add or Remove Programs.
• Project files: Save and reopen your installer configurations as .ibproj files to iterate quickly across builds.
• Diagnostics file: Optionally generate a diagnostics log alongside your output for build troubleshooting.
• Editable WPF templates: The Setup and Uninstall UI templates are real, editable WPF files inside BuilderResources/CompilerTemplates/, allowing developers to inspect and customize the installer appearance.

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Application Images

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How to Run This Application Locally

This application was built using the following technologies:

• C#
• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
• .NET 8 (net8.0-windows)

In conjunction with the following libraries:

• Vestris.ResourceLib — for patching executable icons at compile time.

To run this application on your local machine, make sure you have the latest version of Visual Studio Community 2022 with the .NET Desktop Development workload installed.

Steps

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/your-username/InstallBunker.git

2. Open the solution

Open the InstallBunker.sln file in Visual Studio 2022.

3. Restore NuGet packages

Visual Studio will automatically restore the required packages on first build. If needed, run:

dotnet restore

4. Place the embedded toolchain

InstallBunker requires a .NET SDK to be available inside the BuilderResources/EmbeddedToolchain/ folder at runtime. This is the embedded dotnet.exe that powers the compiler without requiring any system-wide SDK installation.

Important: The EmbeddedToolchain/ folder is not included in source control (it is excluded via .gitignore). You must populate it manually before running or publishing the Builder.

Download the toolchain package and extract it into the correct location:

1. Download EmbeddedToolchain.zip
2. Inside your project, navigate to InstallBunker.Builder.UI > BuilderResources
3. Create a folder called EmbeddedToolchain
4. Extract all files from the zip directly into that folder

The expected structure should look like this:

InstallBunker.Builder.UI/
  BuilderResources/
    EmbeddedToolchain/
      dotnet.exe
      sdk/
      shared/
      packs/

5. Build and run

Set InstallBunker.Builder.UI as the startup project and press F5 to run.

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Project Structure

The solution is organized into the following projects:

Project	Description
InstallBunker.Builder.UI	The main WPF application — the visual wizard the user interacts with.
InstallBunker.Compiler.Core	The compiler engine responsible for materializing templates, invoking dotnet publish, and producing the final output.
InstallBunker.Packager	Handles packing all application files into a single .ibpkg container format.
InstallBunker.Installer.Core	Runtime logic used by the generated Setup executable to install files, registry entries, and shortcuts.
InstallBunker.Uninstaller.Core	Runtime logic used by the generated Uninstaller executable to cleanly remove the application.
InstallBunker.Domain	Shared domain models, enums, and manifest definitions used across all projects.
InstallBunker.Common	Common utilities including JSON serialization, path helpers, and the .ibpkg container format implementation.

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Self-Contained by Design

One of InstallBunker's key design goals is that it does not rely on anything pre-installed on the build machine.

The Modules/ folder ships alongside the published InstallBunker.exe and contains a full embedded .NET toolchain (dotnet.exe + SDK + shared frameworks). When you click Build, the compiler automatically detects and uses this embedded toolchain to compile and publish the Setup and Uninstaller bootstrappers — no system-wide .NET SDK is required.

This makes InstallBunker a true portable, self-sustaining build tool.

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Contribute

Want to add new features or improvements to InstallBunker? Make sure you create a new branch, implement your changes, and submit a Pull Request (PR).

Feel free to open PRs for:

• New features or UI improvements
• Bug fixes
• New translations or localization support
• Improvements to the WPF installer/uninstaller templates inside BuilderResources/CompilerTemplates/

All contributions are welcome and appreciated!

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License

This project is open-source and available under the MIT License.