Would you (or your customers) rather download a 1mb installer and perhaps be prompted to download and install .NET, or a 23mb installer and never need to even know what .NET is?
Chris
+1
A:
The second one. A customer wants all functioning without putting an hand.
Enreeco
2008-10-16 16:04:36
A:
I would rather have one install put one and exactly one piece of software on my machine. When we deploy to our customers, we want to be able to control the installation of dependencies ourselves.
EDIT: Note that I am speaking of an enterprise environment where we centrally manage software deployment to our customers. I also feel this way for myself, but I would class myself as a power user and I can see the counter argument for average Joe user.
EBGreen
2008-10-16 16:05:10
+1
A:
Typically I'm finding it less and less important to bundle the .NET framework with my applications. At least for 2.0 as it is installed most often.
I would say though that for 3.5, as it isn't necessarily installed it might be better to include that with the download for ease of use.
Mitchel Sellers
2008-10-16 16:05:11
A:
I personally would prefer to know it was installing .net.
Most non-technical people won't care, and will get annoyed with an installer that asks them to click more times than necessary (The thought process would go "Install .net? Whats .net? Are you asking me because I should install it, or because I shouldn't? Lets pick a random option" in a lot of people.)
workmad3
2008-10-16 16:05:29
+2
A:
I'd recommend the 1mb installer or "bootstrapper" approach. Unless you're going cutting edge, most Windows machines out there now have the 2.0 framework already installed on them, and getting the application downloaded and installed fast is typically on most users minds.
Dillie-O
2008-10-16 16:05:38
+1
A:
While I personally hate the downloaders that are only 0.5 MB that download the actual installable content later, because you can't archive the actual downloaded installation files, I would have to say that in this case I prefer the 1MB installer. The .Net runtime is common enough that it should be found on most computers. And if it's not, it should come straight from Microsoft, instead of trying to keep an up-to-date version of the .Net framework in your installer. Another option, which is common with Java IDEs such as Eclipse and Netbeans is to have both a version which doesn't come with the J2SDK, and a version which does include an up-to-date version of the J2SDK.
Kibbee
2008-10-16 16:08:42
If it's half a meg just for a downloader, what kind of bloatware is the actual product?
Mark Baker
2008-10-16 16:42:23
+1
A:
I'm thinking Adobe Acrobat, which has a 1/2 Mb installer download to bootstrap a much larger program. Acrobat is up there as one of the most downloaded software packages out there, and they still feel compelled to reduce the size of their initial download. Microsoft is using this approach on some of their larger packages as well.
However, the thing with both of those examples is that they provide a much nicer experience when downloading the full app than the standard Visual Studio installation packages allows for downloading the framework.
Joel Coehoorn
2008-10-16 16:08:48
A:
Scott Hanselman had a really good blog post recently where he talked about bundling the .net framework. One thing to also note is that .net 2.0 was included in Windows XP SP2 so an up to date machine should have at least that
Kievia
2008-10-16 16:13:36
This is misleading. It's an optional update, so even a machine that religiously uses Microsoft update still might not have it.
Joel Coehoorn
2008-10-16 16:30:35
+3
A:
Can't you detect if the framework is installed when they're downloading and serve up the appropriate installer? This way a user that hasn't isn't penalized, and a user that doesn't have it gets the full install.
As an aside, our app is a small download and dynamically downloads the frameworks it needs, but we don't target a "commercial" audience. Ours is much more of a niche app, so your YMMV.
Bob King
2008-10-16 16:14:09
Also, Firefox has it, if they're running 3.5 SP 1 or higher, which is an indicator, as well.
Bob King
2008-10-16 17:08:49
A:
Document the framework dependencies and give the user an optional means of installing it if they don't have it already during your install process. This is especially important if you are delivering via the internet anyway. If you are delivering on CD/DVD then by all means include the redistributable with your code in case the user does not have access to it through the network.
tvanfosson
2008-10-16 16:24:20
A:
Either way, make sure you warn the user if you go with the download option. Nothing is more annoying than being so happy that the new program you're installing on your non-internet connected machine is so small, and then finding out that you aren't quite done...
amdfan
2008-10-16 16:26:33
A:
Check out smallestdotnet as well as the new client profile stuff (depending on your version)
sascha
2009-01-06 02:21:53