Installation package size

[sergey_gerasin]

Hi all,

I've just tried to build "void" installation in Trial version of SF6 (so, no any files, components, registry key creation, etc) and got a 470-kb executable!!! What does this mean? The installator itself takes almost half-megabyte size! What this fact is conditioned by? Which functionality requires such size of code? IMHO, it can be halved (or even taken a third). I don't see such feature in SF6 which would require _so_much_ of code... [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/frown.gif[/img]

Can anybody give the size of executable code needed to realize each feature of the SF6 separately (i.e., for parser, extractor, etc)?

With regards, Sergey.

[Brett]

Hey, if you can come up with a smaller runtime with the same functionality, let us know. We are always striving to do better. [img]/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

- Brett

[Colin]

Actually, if you compare it to the major competitors, you'll see that the Setup Factory 6.0 runtime is very reasonable in size and actually *much* smaller than the leading national brand.

When you consider that this overhead includes both install, uninstall and tons of new features and actions like HTTP downloads, web data submission, .ZIP file extraction, expression parsing, mathematical evaluation, control structures, install types and packages, file system interaction, system mods to registry, ini and text files, plus shortcut icon manipulations, over 20 new dialog screen types, and tons of other stuff, (whew!) it's actually pretty amazing how small the runtime is!

Colin

[Lorne]

If you want a tiny package, just .zip or .rar it and include a readme.txt file.

If you want a professional, industry-leading installer, you're going to have to live with a little overhead.

Some developers in the same industry have actually asked us how we managed to get so much functionality into such an incredibly small package.

[dthogan]

I have to agree with everyone here. I also have the registered version of Winzip Self Extractor that includes an option similar to an install program. BUT it is very limited in what you can present to the user and do, and I have found that it is seldom although sometimes, smaller than SUF in regards to what you end up with.