InstallShield is primarily used for installing software for Microsoft Windows desktop and server platforms, though it can also be used to manage software applications and packages on a variety of handheld and mobile devices.

InstallShield was originally developed by The Stirling Group, a company founded in 1987 by Viresh Bhatia and Rick Harold, who had first met when they were computer science students at Northwestern University.

Their first office was a small room in the basement of an old library building in Roselle, Illinois.

[1] By 1990, The Stirling Group was selling a package of six products called the SHIELD Series, including InstallShield:[2][3] In 1993, The Stirling Group moved into larger offices in Schaumburg, Illinois and changed the company's name to Stirling Technologies, Inc. InstallShield became particularly well known after Microsoft endorsed it for use in Windows 95, and by 1997 Stirling Technologies estimated that it was being used in 85 to 90 percent of all software products written for Windows.

[citation needed] On 1 April 2008, the Macrovision Software Business Unit (including the InstallShield brand) was sold to private equity firm Thoma Cressey Bravo, forming a new company called Acresso Software.