InstallAware

Hi,

I am trying to make an installer smaller then 2.5Mb. The problem is that the installer's overhead alone is about 1.9Mb. I read on a thread that "you can bring that overhead down to around 900 KB"

http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewt ... 8eb5ccb7fe

Do you know how to get the installer overhead down to that size - It will result in an installer at around 2.5Mb which will be great.

Thanks a lot!

As a test, I created a basic setup project and removed all the MSIcode. That makes for a somewhat pointless project, I admit. After building a compressed file the best I could get was about 1.9Mb as well. I tried searching for other ways to shed some fat - I wish I could do that easily to myself (sigh) - but I can't see anything obvious. I wonder if much of the setup is not occupied by the bootstrapper. That's purely speculation on my part however.

The setup engine has grown over the years, proportional to the capabilities of the product...to optimize:

1. Trimming MSIcode won't make much of a difference. Can keep it all as-is.
2. Trimming dialogs WILL make a difference. Remove all bitmaps, and reduce the number of dialogs to a minimum.
3. Trim support files and any other resource going inside your setup, even icons can be huge sometimes.

With a bare minimum for an installer my best was 1.2 mb. Essentially installing a 4 kb text file to the default install location.

That is a 2 dialog installer with a progress dialog and a finished dialog.

I removed all other dialogs, removed the pictures from the dialogs that I was using. Trimmed down the text to a bare minimum, also the rules for each dialog. Right here is where the most space is saved by far.

Trimming down the MSI script from the default, to a bare minimum to support the needs in order to be able to install and uninstall saved an additional 90kb.

May I ask why you need the installer to be that small ?

By the way, great ship name