Jump to content


This is a ready-only archive of the InstallSite Forum. You cannot post any new content here. / Dies ist ein Archiv des InstallSite Forums. Hier können keine neuen Beiträge veröffentlicht werden.
Photo

MSI Overhead


3 replies to this topic

dbareis

dbareis
  • Full Members
  • 85 posts

Posted 30 July 2001 - 04:20

I have a 362 KB MSI file that zips to 177KB (roughly the size of my files to start with).

It would appear that MSI files have a major overhead compared with other installers (non-MSI) I have used.

To me there are two issues:

  * There is a large amount of overhead (even at 177KB)

  * Surely Microsoft designed the MSI files to be efficient (ie tables compressed etc). If not, have they never heard of the internet and bandwidth?

The MSI was created from scratch through Wise Installer OLE automation so there will be no accumulated overheads (things left behind etc).

Anyone know where an MSI can be pruned or how they can be optimised?

Thanks for any help,
Dennis


Kate

Kate
  • Members
  • 61 posts

Posted 31 July 2001 - 00:32

You don't necessarily need to include the MSI engine when you package your setup.exe. W2K, for example, comes with MSI. Don't know what OS your app is for but excluding the MSI engine will cut the size of your setup considerably.

dbareis

dbareis
  • Full Members
  • 85 posts

Posted 31 July 2001 - 02:09

Sounds good, do you know where is it (which tables)?
I'm not producing an EXE, just an MSI...

The MSI is intended for Windows 2000 environments only....


Stefan Krueger

Stefan Krueger

    InstallSite.org

  • Administrators
  • 13,269 posts

Posted 31 July 2001 - 07:24

An .msi file is a COM-structured storage file containing the instructions and data required to install an application. That's quite similar to MS Office files. I don't think it's optimized for small size.
One reason that makes a MSI file grow in size is embedding files (e.g. for custom actions) in the binary table). Other than that you probably can zip the msi file to reduce the size.
You may be able to remove some unneeded tables.