Creating self installing progs and exe's

Hi folks,

Been a member for ages but just started getting back into programming.

My question is this - within my program i use various pictures/sprites/music/sounds/fonts etc. and i want them all to work when i make my exe file.

How do i do this? Do i need to create an installing program or just bundle the files with a ZIP with instructions on where to install them to (presumably fixed paths as my program reads files from certain paths).

Any advice would be great!!

Cheers in advance

http://www.clickteam.com/eng/installcreator.php

free version or pay for version

Search for "Inno Setup Compiler" it is great! And free (I think)

if your program reads files from a specific path, do yourself the favor and first fix your program.

relative paths: ok
absolute paths: not ok to plain stupid

not everyone is having C and D drives and the like for example

As for the installer: 7zip and self extracting exe could do the job as well if you don't need registry key or register dlls etc

Ok, thanks for the advice people.

How do i do relative paths? that might be a very open question but that sounds like it will makes sense.

the way i see it (aint blitzed in yonks) instead of

C:\program files\blitz\bla\bla\gfx\png.png

its just gfx\png assuming that the exe is in the 2nd bla directory
same as if you were doing a website and calling gfx from a folder

if you go the zip route and not a 'bung everything in an exe' method, as long as the files arnt moved by the user everything should be hunky dory no matter where they extract it to, even a usb drive if the transfer rate is fast enough to play the game ;)

2nd vote for Inno setup and "IStool" which is a separate front end wizard for it. Makes this stuff really easy.
Its free too.