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The amazing shrinking setup file - any VB experts out there?
Howdy all. I'm new to SF and have limited experience with Visual Basic installation package requirements, so please excuse my ignorance.
My question is this: how do you determine what support files are actually needed in an installation package? For example, I have a small Visual Basic 6 program that uses mscal.ocx. I ran the "Scan Dependencies" utility in SF and it ony listed msvbvm60.dll, so I included that file in the package. I also noticed that the VB6 runtime support module was included, apparently by default.
The first installation package I made for this program using SF was 3.1 mb in size. The installation worked fine, as did the resulting installed program. But since the executable for the program is only 208 kb, I started trying to figure out why the installation package was so big, and started removing stuff. I removed msvbvm60.dll. Setup worked, program worked, file size was reduced to 2.34 mb. I then removed the runtime support module. Setup worked, program worked, file size was reduced to 1.06 mb. Finally I removed everything but the executable and an ini file the program needs. Setup and program still worked, and file size was reduced to 501 kb. That seems a lot more reasonable for a 208 kb program. I'm telling SF to create an uninstall procedure, so I'm sure that adds some size to the final setup file.
I'm testing stuff on a different computer than the one I'm developing the software and installation packages on. But unfortunately, I don't have an absolutely clean computer to try the installations on. That means I really don't know if the program is going to work when installed on a computer that has never had VB installed on it or any of my junk programs installed. Sorry for the epic post. But to restate my question - does the VB executable contain everything it needs, or should I include the dlls and other files associated with the program? Thanks for any suggestions.
R. Donges
My question is this: how do you determine what support files are actually needed in an installation package? For example, I have a small Visual Basic 6 program that uses mscal.ocx. I ran the "Scan Dependencies" utility in SF and it ony listed msvbvm60.dll, so I included that file in the package. I also noticed that the VB6 runtime support module was included, apparently by default.
The first installation package I made for this program using SF was 3.1 mb in size. The installation worked fine, as did the resulting installed program. But since the executable for the program is only 208 kb, I started trying to figure out why the installation package was so big, and started removing stuff. I removed msvbvm60.dll. Setup worked, program worked, file size was reduced to 2.34 mb. I then removed the runtime support module. Setup worked, program worked, file size was reduced to 1.06 mb. Finally I removed everything but the executable and an ini file the program needs. Setup and program still worked, and file size was reduced to 501 kb. That seems a lot more reasonable for a 208 kb program. I'm telling SF to create an uninstall procedure, so I'm sure that adds some size to the final setup file.
I'm testing stuff on a different computer than the one I'm developing the software and installation packages on. But unfortunately, I don't have an absolutely clean computer to try the installations on. That means I really don't know if the program is going to work when installed on a computer that has never had VB installed on it or any of my junk programs installed. Sorry for the epic post. But to restate my question - does the VB executable contain everything it needs, or should I include the dlls and other files associated with the program? Thanks for any suggestions.
R. Donges
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