InstallAware 17 Upgrade Compression Issue

[Mjoseph]

I have been building a project using InstallAware 15 until about a week ago I decided to upgrade to 17. Before the upgrade, the executable produced was 3.5MB, after the upgrade, with no changes to the project, the new executable is 5.5MB. Compression settings have been set all the way up, the build is being done via miabuild.exe with the same command line parameters being passed as far as compression goes (/b=2 -qf -qr). The only difference I can see is the InstallAware version.

In trying to troubleshoot this issue, I experimented with compression to make sure it was working, sure enough, depending on compression settings, the file can range from 8.5MB to 5.5MB. Unlike a previous thread I saw related to this issue, I am not getting any errors for the build.

This is strange as documentation on InstallAware claims compression should have improved. Did I miss a step somewhere? Is there a process I need to follow to upgrade my InstallAware project?

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mjoseph,

you are missing a significant consideration.

In IA 17 the compiled package links the UNICODE version of any used library (low level libraries).
The Unicode version of those libraries are significantly more bigger in terms of file size and in addition, the resource strings used by the package are bigger as well ( ... an Unicode string is exactly the double in bytes size if compared to an identical ANSI string).

What I am saying can be easily verified comparing the Uncompressed build generated using an ANSI version of IA.
If you execute this simple test, you can verify that the Uncompressed output generated with IA 17, it is about the double in terms of files size.

To conclude, for sure in IA 17 the compression level has been improved ... but the binaries to be compressed are bigger.

Is there a process I need to follow to upgrade my InstallAware project?

Use the Unicode upgrade tool ... please refer to IA documentation for more details.

Regards

[Mjoseph]

Thank you for your reply! I went ahead and ran the tool on my project but it did not impact the size.

Let me get this straight, IA17 does better compression but the package size is much larger due to a change from ANSI to Unicode. If there is no way for me to get my package size back down to under 4MB, my business will not publish it. Is there anything else I can try to increase the compression or is my only option to downgrade back to InstallAware 15?

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mjoseph,

the Unicode upgrade tool only executes the correct resources update to UNICODE ... it has nothing to do with the output size.

Just a question, why don't you consider the option to distribute your package as Compressed Web Based Exe?
I'm sure you will be able to deploy a more smaller package ... Of course doing this, you will need to supply your installed binaries as separate web media blocks.

Regards

[Mohamed Koker]

Hi Francesco,

Is there any way to disable this behaviour?

My installer ballooned from 83MB to 133MB after we upgraded from IA15 to IA18 and we are not really interested in Unicode support or multiple lamguages.

I would prefer to have a smaller installer to reduce the bandwidth on our web server.

Regards

-Mohamed

[mehran]

Hi there,

We had same problem with installer size after upgrading to version 18 (from version 15).
Our installer was 83MB before upgrading and it is 133MB after upgrading to IA 18.

I have done some observation on this issue and I hope it can help you find a solution for us.

We always do a Web deploy so third party installers and large files will be kept in web media blocks. We do this to keep Setup.exe file as small as possible.

Here is what I did:
I extracted the output Setup.exe file using 7zip.[/list]
The extracted folder contains a few files and one folder (OFFLINE) which keeps the offline contents.

One of the files is Setup.res file which is 1.3 GIGA BYTES in size!.

I did the same test on the installer we built using InstallAware 15, and the Setup.res file was just 6 mega bytes.

This Setup.res file is actually an archive itself.

I extracted the large setup.res file (which was 1.3GB) using 7zip, and compressed it again using 7zip, the new file was only 5 mega bytes!

-----------
Then I monitored the output folder while building the installer (InstallAware generates multiple files and folders during build and at the end compresses all of them into one Setup.exe file), and this is what I found:

During build process, a file called "runtime.7zip" gets created which is 1.2 Giga Bytes.
The installer log shows "mfilebagexe.dll" whlie generating this file
Then installer then renames this file to "setup.res" and the installer log says:"Injected Runtime Files" at this point.

Once again I need to mention here that we use "Web Deploy" option, and all of large files get added to web media blocks, and not the main setup.exe file.

-----------
The next thing I tried was this:
I monitored the output folder again and when InstallAware finished creating Setup.res file (after "Injected Runtime Files" step), I replaced this giant 1.3 GB file with the one I generated using 7zip, and let the installer do the rest of the steps.

The final Setup.exe file is back to 82MB and it works! I tested the new installer on a testing environment and it finished with no errors!

------------
Conclusion:
What I explained above does not mean our problem is resolved.

I am providing it to help InstallAware developers to find a real solution for us.

We have an Agile team here and use automated build process. We generate 5-10 build a day, so we cannot sit there and replace the setup.res file manually during each build.

Please spend some time resolving this major issue for your long time customers!

Thanks for your time.
Mehran

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mehran,

many thanks for your accurate report ... let me investigate on it.

Regards

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mehran,

an IA 18.02 update has been made available. It should fix the error your reported.

For a complete list of the fixes included with this last update, please refer to;
http://www.installaware.com/blog/

Regards