Request to support INS files from 1990s which have a different format

[LucienMP]

The older installshield files ".ins" from 1990s is not currently supported.
This seems to be a similar file format to the existing aLuZ format with some different offsets.

Referring to : https://github.com/file/file/blob/master/magic/Magdir/windows#L1765 and

SEE: TrID ; https://mark0.net/soft-tridnet-e.html clipped as below

<Info>
	<FileType>InstallShield Script (1997)</FileType>
	<Ext>INS</Ext>
	<Mime>application/octet-stream</Mime>
	<ExtraInfo>
		<Rem></Rem>
		<RefURL>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InstallShield</RefURL>
	</ExtraInfo>
	<User>Marco Pontello</User>
	<E-Mail>marcopon@gmail.com</E-Mail>
	<Home>https://mark0.net</Home>
</Info>
<General>
	<FileNum>21</FileNum>
	<Refine>7 by Marco Pontello</Refine>
	<CheckStrings>True</CheckStrings>
	<Date>
		<Year>2023</Year>
		<Month>3</Month>
		<Day>12</Day>
	</Date>
	<Time>
		<Hour>20</Hour>
		<Min>4</Min>
		<Sec>20</Sec>
	</Time>
	<Creator>TrIDScan/Py v2.02</Creator>
</General>
<FrontBlock>
	<Pattern>
		<Bytes>B8C90C00</Bytes>
		<Pos>0</Pos>
	</Pattern>
	<Pattern>
		<Bytes>000100</Bytes>
		<Pos>5</Pos>
	</Pattern>
</FrontBlock>
<GlobalStrings>
	<String>BATCH_INSTALL</String>
	<String>ERRORFILENAME</String>
	<String>HINST_INSTALL</String>
	<String>INFOFILENAME</String>
	<String>LAST_RESULT</String>
	<String>SUPPORTDIR</String>
	<String>TARGETDISK</String>
	<String>WINSYSDISK</String>
	<String>ISVERSION</String>
	<String>LOGHANDLE</String>
	<String>TARGETDIR</String>
	<String>WINSYSDIR</String>
	<String>CMDVALUE</String>
	<String>CMDLINE</String>
	<String>PROGRAM</String>
	<String>SRCDISK</String>
	<String>WINDISK</String>
	<String>FOLDER</String>
	<String>SHARED</String>
	<String>SRCDIR</String>
	<String>SYSTEM</String>
	<String>UNINST</String>
	<String>WINDIR</String>
	<String>FILES</String>
	<String>MODE</String>
	<String>USER</String>
</GlobalStrings>

[setup.ins.zip](https://github.com/jte/installscript-decompiler/files/14293684/setup.ins.zip)

[LucienMP]

What I got so far
00: B8 C9 0C 00 :: MAGIC?
04: 50 00 01 00 1B D3 28 00 32 30 00 :: MAGIC / CRC?
0F: "InstallSHIELD Software Coporation (c) 1990-1997"
3F: GlobalsSizeA :: System Vars Size
41: GlobalsSizeB
44: Array[GlobalsSizeA] Table of type data? 0002 or FFFF
D5: TableSize
D7: String# Index
D9: String Len
DB: char* string
22F: Constant 16?
231: TableSize (of Global table)
233: String# Index
235: String Len
237: char* string
... repeats
<< chunk of 0002 / 0004 / 0003 ... >>
<< GDI/USER DLL link chunk >>
<< chunk of 0002 / 0004 / 0003 ... >>
<

>

[jte]

Thank you for the issue. I will take a look.

[LucienMP]

Thanks for the reply. Do you have the INS generator, I have found that the command ops (bytecode) seems different from the later 2000s bytecode.

[jte]

Hey, I have finally found a version of InstallShield that generates .ins files: https://archive.org/details/IS5pro.
Now I can begin the work.

[LucienMP]

Sorry for my late reply, thats what I found and was using it. How far did you get, need any help?

[jte]

Hey,
I found information about actions (a number of arguments for each) in InstallShield installer (in decompressed INST32I.EX).
That allowed me to make a placeholder action for yet unimplemented actions, so the decompiler outputs something.
I am currently working on adding the missing actions (and their decompiler counterpart).
If you want to help and have time, you could add some of the missing actions.