Download .Net install file from Microsoft servers.

[Rene]

I am new to InstallAware so I forgive me if this is a silly question. I am looking at the “Web Media Block” for my .Net 2 file distributable and it looks like I have to provide the web media block with a URL where the file will be downloaded from.

The problem here is that I don’t want to have to pay for the extra bandwidth nor I want to slowdown our server so that people can download the .Net from our site, so I am looking for a URL that I can use (perhaps InstallAware) that will host this download and other for other web media blocks.

InstallShied allows you to specify the http://www.installengine.com/cert05/dotnetfx path. I have no idea where this path is located at but I have a feeling is hosted my InstallShield and not by Microsoft or some other organization. this is nice because it puts the burden on that server and not ours.

Anyway, does InstallAware has a similar solution? Is it possible to set a URL to the Microsoft servers?

Thank you.

[MichaelNesmith]

Rene

InstallAware does not host file downloads, but we help with your bandwidth costs by downloading optional components only when needed (using web media blocks/partial web deployment), and making sure everything is compressed as tightly as possible.

[Rene]

Thanks,

I will still ask you guys to consider hosting the standard application runtimes such as the .Net frameworks, the MSI engines etc (basically all the ones that listed on the Application Runtimes view by default) so that we can point our setup files to those servers and not have to worry about running out of bandwidth. Many of us will not be needing anything else than that.

Frankly, Microsoft should be the ones hosting these files, perhaps IA could have some technology that could go to where the files are being hosted by Microsoft right now and download then from Microsoft.

For example, it would be nice if I could add a URL such as: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en to a web media block and have IA download and run the file just like if I was doing it manually.

Just a suggestion!

Thanks.

[MichaelNesmith]

This is a great suggestion - please feel free to pass it on to Microsoft (as we are also doing).

Note that you may also download runtimes directly from the Microsoft site using the Download File plug-in and then execute them using the Run Program command. If you prefer to run the poorly-compressed installers instead of our optimized versions, you could update all the runtime installation scripts accordingly so any new projects you create would automatically inherit those settings.