how to make a custom install menu?

im looking to make an install menu like this:


whats the best way of doing so, are there software options available to me or would i need to make a project in visual studio?

I don't think you need special software, you will probably just need to go to the website and download the graphics image for the buttons background.

From there most of the visual stuff are all css.
Thus, you will need to learn css.

Otherwise, download the page source and resources like js, css, jpg etc to reproduce the page on your own machine.
From there edit as you wish.
In addition, use FireFox with Firebug to get hold of how each element is styled and you can learn from it too.

An alternative, if you don't need to follow the style 100%.
You can create some pretty themed web page by just importing some themed css from e.g. jquery ui or dojo and you can create nice button pretty quickly.
hxxp://jqueryui.com/themeroller/
hxxp://dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/1.7/dijit/themes.html

hth

if you look at my screenshot, its from an .exe which runs on your pc, not a web-page. so i need to create a stand-alone install menu like in the screenshot but which runs from disc

Sorry, my mistake.

In this case, you are right that you need an IDE to develop an application to do the job.

But if you are just looking to do installation and not being particular on the visual effects, then you can look into InstallShield.

will installshield give me the choice of what software installs?

I must admit my experience with InstallShield has been a long time back.
And yes, back then, it already has this option, and I would only assume that the features will be more advance right now.

Those option like full, minimal and custom installation option that we see during installation of major software are all done with installshield.
So, I see no reason why it will not meet your requirement for customization of installation.
But, as for the visual appearance, then I'm not sure.

Hth.

For such an install program, it would not be very difficult to create a similar GUI / application in Visual Studio. You can then have each button simply launch a separate installer for each product. If you need to create installers for each setup, I recommend Inno Setup (it's entirely free). It would be good to have the program detect when the installation is complete for each program in order to prevent multiple programs from installing at once.