Qt Installer Framework is developed as part of the Qt project. The framework itself uses Qt. However, it can be used to install all kind of applications, including (but not limited to) applications built with Qt.

Supported Platforms

You can use the Qt Installer Framework to create installers for all platforms supported by desktop Qt.

The installers have been tested on the following platforms:

• Microsoft Windows 7, and later
• Ubuntu Linux 16.04, and later
• macOS 10.12, and later

Building from Sources

The following steps describe how to build the Qt Installer Framework yourself. You can skip this if you have downloaded a pre-built version of the framework.

Supported Compilers

The Qt Installer Framework can be compiled with Microsoft Visual Studio 2013 and newer, GCC 4.7 and newer, and Clang 3.1 and newer. Currently, the tested combination for Windows is Qt 5.12.4 with MSVC 2015.

Configuring Qt

If you use a statically built Qt to build the Qt Installer Framework you do not have to deliver Qt libraries, which enables you to distribute installers as one file. Please read SSL Import and Export Restrictions from http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/ssl.html if you are statically linking against OpenSSL libraries.

Qt versions between 5.9.0 and 5.12.x are supported.

Configuring Qt for Windows

We recommend that you use the following options when you configure Qt for Windows:

configure -prefix %CD%\qtbase -release -static -static-runtime -accessibility -no-icu -no-sql-sqlite -no-qml-debug -nomake examples -nomake tests

Build Qt:

nmake (or 'mingw32-make') module-qtbase module-qtdeclarative module-qttools module-qttranslations module-qtwinextras

Configuring Qt for Linux

We recommend that you use the following configuration options for Linux:

configure -prefix $PWD/qtbase -release -static -accessibility -qt-zlib -qt-libpng -qt-libjpeg -qt-xcb -qt-pcre -no-glib -no-cups -no-sql-sqlite -no-qml-debug -no-opengl -no-egl -no-xinput2 -no-sm -no-icu -nomake examples -nomake tests -no-libudev

Build Qt:

make module-qtbase module-qtdeclarative module-qttools module-qttranslations

Configuring Qt for macOS

We recommend that you use the following configuration options for macOS:

configure -prefix $PWD/qtbase -release -static -no-securetransport -accessibility -qt-zlib -qt-libpng -qt-libjpeg -no-cups -no-sql-sqlite -no-qml-debug -nomake examples -nomake tests -no-freetype

Build Qt:

make module-qtbase module-qtdeclarative module-qttools module-qttranslations

Setting up Qt Installer Framework

1. Clone the Qt Installer Framework source code from http://code.qt.io/cgit/installer-framework/installer-framework.git/ to get the sources for the tools.
2. Build the tools by running the "qmake" from the static Qt, followed by "make" or "nmake".

Note: To contribute patches to Qt Installer Framework, follow the standard Qt processes and guidelines. For more information, see Contribute to Qt.