Scott Hanselman just posted some interesting details on the size of the .Net framework and I was surprised to see that it’s really not as big as it always seems, based on typical installers.
Everytime you go to a typical DotNet download site, you see this “approximately 200 MB” download. Scary stuff if you’re aiming to create a nice small download. But as he notes, this is because instead of creating a “pick the download that matches your configuration”, Microsoft has an installer that covers every possible scenario, which unfortunately, DOES require 200MB.
So he’s created SmallestDotNet: On the Size of the .NET Framework – it didn’t work so well on mine (as shown here):
<a href=”http://content.screencast.com/users/Akselsoft/folders/Jing/media/fe8e9221-d9cf-4bf8-ad36-271a3051f694/2008-08-24_0425.png”><img src=”http://content.screencast.com/users/Akselsoft/folders/Jing/media/fe8e9221-d9cf-4bf8-ad36-271a3051f694/2008-08-24_0425.png” width=”405″ height=”166″ border=”0″ /></a>
But it’s better than nothing.
The only question that now arises is: but if I’m creating an installer, don’t I have to be prepared for every possible installation? Possibly but apparently there’s a tool “Client Profile Bootstrapper” that will make it easier in the future.
Note that this isn’t for Dev DotNet stuff (like Team Explorer which is a 250MB download for what essentially is a file browser) – I wish there would be a similar post on this as well.
Great stuff and thanks, Scott!