Intro to the 8.x series
The 8.x series makes a major departure from previous versions - though for many people this might just be seen as an "under the hood" change. All previous SSE Setup versions were ANSI-based rather than Unicode-based. Among other things, this is what allowed SSE Setup to still create installs that would work on old ANSI-only OS's like Windows 98. However, because SSE Setup could not support Unicode in pretty much any way, it would choke in situations where Unicode characters were used in filenames or in various locations and could not display any Unicode characters. One might think adding such support would be easy, but it was not. The entirety of the SSE Setup product had to be completely re-tooled in very in-depth ways to support Unicode. Much core code was changed or replaced and several undocumented or potential bugs were fixed along the way. By moving to Unicode, SSE Setup now only supports creating installs for Windows 2000 or newer OS's. For most 7.x users however, they should find that SSE Setup 8.x still looks and operates largely as it did in 7.x, with new improvements. Like 7.x, the 8.x series is intended to be stable and solid. All previous users should make sure to read the notes in the Version Changes part of the help file after upgrading as there are important notes there.
Changes Made
Bug Fix: Specifying the <PROGRAMFOLDER> built-in folder keyword as an argument to a shortcut/link would not have worked.
Bug Fix (Booster): Incorrect hiding of Program Folder setting when Upgrade Folder Mode setting was set to the third option.
Bug Fix: Installing fonts to the Fonts folder may have been problematic.
Bug Fix: Access-related upgrade & patch issues. For Access database installs, there were previously issues when upgrading or patching that could have possibly led to installs requiring reboots or ending up with the old version still remaining open after the new version was installed.
New Feature: Unicode support. All previous SSE Setup versions were ANSI-based. It was because of that that SSE Setup was able to support older ANSI-based OS's (i.e. Windows 9x/ME). Windows 2000 and above also fully support Unicode. Because SSE Setup was ANSI-based, it couldn't handle Unicode filenames/pathnames and any Unicode characters would often be replaced with "?" characters leading to invalid paths. It also could not handle any users that might have had Unicode-chars in their usernames. And of course it could not show any Unicode text. The project editors (Booster and the Manual Editor) also did not support Unicode for settings. SSE Setup 8.0 now supports Unicode largely across-the-board. It can now handle filenames/paths with Unicode chars and can display Unicode text (which can be entered within the editors). As for UI language support, currently nothing has changed. For now, the languages available are still the 12 built-in ones and are not modifiable. However, with these underlying Unicode changes, the plan at some point is for a version that will support both modification of displayed UI text as well as additional custom language support. Because of this switch to Unicode, the decision was made to drop support for the old and mostly-ANSI-only based Windows 95/98/ME OS's as well as NT 4.0 which has more limited Unicode support than was desired. Therefore the earliest OS you can create installs for is now Windows 2000 (which of course itself is 17-years-old as of this writing). If you must continue supporting Windows 9x/ME/NT4, it is suggested you use the last v7.x version of SSE Setup available. SSE Setup is not alone in dropping support of those ancient OS's - in fact some other high-profile installers already dropped support of them years ago.
New Change: Windows 95/98/ME/NT4 support dropped. As explained above.
New Change (Booster): Major updates to Booster project editor. The Booster versions included with previous releases were not scalable leading to smaller windows and harder-to-read text on ultra-high resolution displays. The new version is better in this regard, has a little updated look/feel, and has full Unicode support in line with SSE Setup's new overall Unicode support.
New Change (Booster): Support in Booster for SHA-256 and dual-signing with a code-signing certificate.
New Change (Booster & Launchpad): Speed optimizations when working with larger projects.
New Change: Improved Access deployment. Access deployment has been simplified even further and now also by default can install your database into Program Files (normally a no-no for Access databases, but SSE Setup works around). Simply select your database file when starting a new project and your project will be started with most of what it needs and it will also offer to open up the Access Deployment step-by-step guide that you should follow and makes creating your Access install a breeze! If you have previously created Access-related installs, make SURE you read the more detailed notes on this item in the Version Changes section of the help file.
New Change: Improved process handling and handling of locked-files on Vista and greater OS's leading to lessened chances of reboots being required.
New Change: Programs being patched might be able to stay open during the procedure.
New Change: UPDATECLOSEPROCESS setting no longer works on Vista and newer OS's by default. This v7.8-introduced setting now only works pre-Vista by default due to process handling changes on Vista+ that mostly make it unnecessary.
New Change: Prerequisite download URL's can now point to non-EXE files (such as .MSI's).
New Change: Installation log file is now kept by default for seemingly successful installs. The log file is now written to the folder where your program was installed upon successful install. All existing projects will be updated to this new default upon upgrade to v8.0. Read help for more info.
New Change: Addition of Access Folder to folder dropdowns, which specifies the folder where MS Access or the Access Runtime is located.
New Change: Processing order change during Uninstall for running programs.
New Change: License/Disclaimer files can now be up to 300k in filesize.
New Change: Ability to bypass some non-admin related checks on target folders and registry keys.
New Change (Booster): You can now potentially use FTPS (FTP with SSL/TLS security) instead of plain FTP to publish.
New Change: You can now differentiate between different versions of Windows 10 (& 2016 in the future) for blocking certain versions from being able to install.
New Change: On a limited basis, you can now allow some installed items to not be uninstalled/undone.
New Change: You can now select a file of any filetype in Uninstall Run Programs page.
New Change: Default IUI filename changed from sseiui.dat to sseiui.txt.
New Change: New folder code added to reference the old version's folder for an Upgrade install.
New Change: Overhead change. Since v7.0 debuted almost 5 years ago, the overhead (amount of filesize that's SSE Setup related in your install) of all versions since has been pretty much in the same ballpark. With 8.0, the switch to Unicode necessitated a ~100k overhead increase. There really wasn't any way around this and I tried to minimize it as much as possible. Considering that this is the first notable increase in 5 years and that an extra 100kb means even less today than it did 5 years ago, this really isn't that big of deal. In comparison to a number of other Unicode installers in SSE Setup's feature-class, SSE Setup is still in the general ballpark as far as overhead, and also still beats a number of installers out there in this area.
New Change: Added .NET Framework 4.6.2 prerequisite option.
New Change: Effective January 3, 2017, the Windows Installer 2.0 download links have been removed server-side since Microsoft removed them.
New Change: Effective January 2, 2017, the .NET Framework download links for v1.0, v1.1, and v3.0 have been removed server-side.
New Change: Effective January 2, 2017, the Visual C++ 2015 prerequisite download option now downloads SP3 of the C++ redistributable.
New Change: License change. The previous license allowed free use only it there was not any tie to a business, educational, or non-profit. Now, that restriction has been removed, but the definition of free software has been clarified to mean 100% free with no advertising or other monetization methodology and no spyware or malware of any kind. Also no trial, demo, or shareware software, etc. Thus even a business can now legally use SSE Setup for free if the program they are producing is 100% free. At the same time that the previous restriction was lifted, the price for a commercial-use license has been increased to $99. This is the first real increase since 2004 as the price has always been $50 or less. Even at $99, SSE Setup is cheaper (often substantially) than many other installers in its feature-class - many such installers routinely sell for multiple hundreds of dollars. Given SSE Setup's extensive features, ease-of-use, complete documentation, and the fact that you never have to pay again for new versions (unlike competitors), $99 is still a steal. This pricing change affects all versions (since the $50 option no longer exists). If you already have a commercial use license, this change has no effect on you - your license is still valid.