Installation speed?

[Stevie]

I'm using the PD Wizard to install my application, which in total is about 25mb (includes MDAC and Crystal reports stuff).

Is it normal for this to take about 35 minutes to install?

If not can it be speeded up somehow?

[Iain17]

Wow, that does seem like an excesivley long time for 25mb. Is it just a slow machine?

Other than that, it may take some time to register dll's and ocx's, and update the registrey etc.

You may be able to speed it up by modifying the Setup1.exe. Though i would not recomend this unless you are seriously good. It is in :

c:\program files\microsoft visual studio\vb98\wizards\PdWizard\Setup1\Setup1.vbp


Other options, use a third party instalation package.

[Stevie]

That is about the time it takes on all the machines I've installed it on. (slow and fast)

It copies across the files, restarts and installs MDAC in about 5-6 minutes, but when it starts installing the app it grinds to a halt. It has to install about 20 icons and it seems to be these which take bloody ages. No kidding it takes roughly 1 minute per icon.

[Paul282]

Have you Tried Inno Setup? It's fast and compresses better and to single exe. Its free too.

I'm not sure if it can handle installing MDAC though, but it can copy files, run programs and wait for them to finish then continue so I suppose it'd be fine.

I don't use PD anymore. The interface is tacky. I sometimes use it just to find out what file dependancies exist then use Inno.

Paul

[Stevie]

I've always used the wizards that come with VB, so I've never actually tried other setup applications.

Where can I get Inno setup from?

I see that you use SP4, what does that have extra to SP3?

[Paul282]

You can get inno here http://jrsoftware.org/
It may seem a little awkward at first with the scripts but the help sample lets you create a template really easy and you can just re-use it. give it a go, the interface for the user is nice. I origonally got it because it has registry key update, icon to startup, single exe, and no pre-screen with "1 of 7 componants loaded" at the beginning.


SP4 apparently has lots of bug fixes in it, I haven't noticed any difference yet, it's about a 50mb download too. so far, not really worth the effort.

Oh, yes I have! the oleaut32.dll file is new, some people have reported trouble with that file clashing with other apps on version data stamping. (like Eudora mail).

[Stevie]

Cheers I'll check it out.

I don't think I'll bother with SP4 yet then if thats the case, unless of course I run into problems that it would solve.

Thanks again.