In addition, there is no logic in your unbundling and naming scheme. I already suggested some naming rules in this thread, but I could not find it.

In a nutshell:
() Bundling
- don't unbundle games which you took from a compilation CD or something similar.
- revert the unbundling with games which are already unbundled (Heroes Chronicles, Sierra Games, Zork, Might & Magic 1-6 collection CD, Earthworm Jim 1-2 CD (where is the audio track!), Ultima 7 Complete, Battle Chess, Battle Isle Saga ...)
- just don't touch the original release provided by the publisher, include patches and wrap around your installer plus DOSBOX/ScummVM where applicable. Don't butcher the original releases and if the original CD has audio tracks, include them as mp3 and/or FLAC.

() Naming
- do some quality assurance on these names, at least another person should check new names of the games
- if unsure, do a lookup on mobygames on the names.
- decide, if the games should be numbered with roman letters or by numbers and don't mix it in the series (Ultima, Heroes of Might & Magic, I'm looking "V" vs 5)
- games should be named first by series, by series number and then by title (hello "tesla effect, a tex murphy adventure" vs "tex murphy ...."

Maybe I'm to pesimistic, but don't waste more of your time making good suggestions (at least from that's what I think of almost all suggestions made in this thread in the 30 or so pages), because even if one admin now wrote something, nearly nothing will change until a noticeably amount of people stop throwing their monry towards GOG.
Why should they do anything if you still buy from them? Just because you threaten to stop? No way this is going to change anything.

Just my 2 cents.

Don't worry, I wouldn't say you were too pessimistic. However, I do think that the GOG folk who 'monitor' the forums do see the suggestions and pass them on to the appropriate channels.

You are right, if enough people stop spending money on GOG, they may do something to change their practices, policies and procedures; however, you may find out that only one out of every ten people are actually vocal about a complaint. There are times when those who pose threats are the minority behind a company's decision. Similar for those who choose not to spend their money (and at times miss out on some good things).

Usually the best thing anyone (and everyone concerned) could do is post some constructive criticism, describe the problem and propose possible solutions --just as others have already done here. That's usually the best way to get a change enacted which is more to one's liking.

Cheers!

Do you know of any available tool set that provides these features? I don't get the impression that GOG has soo much free time that they would want to start developing their own installer ;)
inno setup already comes close what you describe.

InnoSetup uses its own home-grown packing format that's not guaranteed to remain stable across versions. I think what he wants is something structured more like a self-extracting zip file where the mechanism for skipping the SFX stub remains stable from version to version.

NSIS 2.x (A.K.A. Nullsoft Installer 2.x) is the other big name in mature, open-source installer technology for Windows and I think it might meet that criterion. (But it's been quite a long time so don't just take me at my word)

but sfx archives don't support embedding an installer script that can create registry entries, etc.( afaik?!?)
thats why I was asking if he has something in else mind.
With common, standard archive formats (like zip, rar,etc) you won't get very far.

i don't know really know much about NSIS. Does it guarantee a stable format? What advantages has it over Inno setup?
from what I read you need a special program to unpack nsis installers as well, not sure why thats different than inno setup?

They do. Once extracted, run xyz.cmd and customize the installation.

batch script might work for simple registry entries. but do you really want to see the options from the installer gui moved to batch?
people will be be ecstatic when the nice installer gui is replaced with a batch-powered, cmdline-based installation script.

Install Foxit Reader [Y/N]

like good old times ;)

nah, i think there is a reason people like to use proper installer with integrated scripting support.

Instead of a command line "Install X? Y/N", run the setup with a "Install FoxIt Now?" prompt. A command script can do quite a lot of things, including running additional programs.
And I'm just answering that it is possible for a self extracting archive to run additional commands once extracted, including modifying registry entries, setting stuff to install on next reboot, creating desktop shortcuts or do whatever else you want.
But it will require someone to know how to script using either the command prompt or powershell.

It depends on the SFX builder. The ability for WinZIP's self-extracting stub to extract to %TEMP% and then run a command defined non-InstallShield installers in the late '90s.

(You may remember them. They looked like other WinZIP self-extractors except the target directory box was greyed out and the "Extract" button said "Setup" instead.)

I'm not sure if it guarantees a stable format, but I thought it was a viable candidate because:
1. It satisfies the requirement that, to please GOG, it must be a scriptable, customizable GUI installer at least as mature as InnoSetup.
2. Like InnoSetup, it has [url=http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Category:Compression]plugin support for external archives[/url] (in other words, it can also use BIN files for bigger games)
3. It's written in C++ (and it's portable enough that a cross-compile build of makensis for Linux exists) rather than the proprietary Delphi dialect of Object Pascal.
4. Whatever approach it takes to compression seems to be more stable than InnoSetup's, since innosetup-extracting tools go out of their way to list supported versions while NSIS-extracting tools don't.
5. 7-zip is one of the tools that can unpack NSIS installers.

Or %TEMP%\python.exe, or whatever they want to write it in that does the job, so long as it's transparent and editable (neither cmd.exe nor powershell.exe have Mac/Linux equivalents).

Considering that we were talking about self extracting archives, it would be a windows executable either way. So if it's extracted in another OS, one would have to create a new setup script either way, and see how to deal with registry entries.

Will there be an option to "bundle" them again? I like the look of the actual game box rather than a generic picture of sorts. I understand unbundling may make multiple games easier to recognize or find, but I would think most people who buy a game bundle know which games come with it.

Anyone found a way to hook into this, and change the box art? Personalized Box art would be pretty win.

Should be fairly simple with a userscript. The trick is finding someone with the requisite skills who wants it badly enough to implement it.