@sskras thought it would be nice to have a simple installation framework for Windows which:

• would be text-based
  (could be fixed by hand / using notepad, with no rebuilding)

• could run on as many retired NT versions as possible
  (going back to at least Win XP or even Win 2000)

• would have no 3rd party dependencies
  (ones like Qt, Python, Perl, Lua, UI++)

So he ran some research and chose the Internet Explorer (IE)-based HTA — HTML Application technology introduced in 1999 along with IE5.

Which makes all three initial requirements satisfied.

The initial idea is to have a single .hta file which would contain all the logic and most of data, and so would be a self-contained executable.

So at first some fundamental things were ironed out — eg. a fixed size window having most of IE shortcut keys disabled, and being resistant to potential UI joggling using mouse.

I took OSD_HTA.hta from gitlab.com/chrismbradford/osd-wizard repository as a code-wise inspiration.
I also used gvd5-x64.exe installer of gBurner Free as the reference UI design:

Basically it is a 640 x 480 size static window partitioned into several rows via <table>, which uses MS Shell Dlg 2 font.

As of commit ee221c0, it looks like this on Aug 05, 2025:

Some debug measures are implemented now. If table classes grid_lines and grid_thin are enabled, eg:

... it gets somewhat easier to see the actual GUI layout: