Language to write a Windows application that doesn't take up a lot of space

Question

I need to write a Windows XP/Vista application, main requirements:

• Just one .exe file, without extra runtime, like Air, .Net; posstibly a couple of dlls.
• Very small file size.

The application is for network centric usage, similar to ICQ or Gtalk clients.

Answer 1

What is exactly your question?

Answer 2

You can try: C++ w/ MFC. That's really going to be the only way you can seriously control the 'size' of your application (though why is that a constraint?).

If you want even lighterweight, you can try the Windows Template Library with C++.

Answer 3

I do not like Windows, well I hate it. However I would use C++ and Windows API. You can download Visual C++ express for free or use Eclipse for C++.

Thanks for the -9 guys! I still hate Windows. Few serious command line programs. Primitive shell. Very closed environment. Inefficient. Insecure. Want more?

Answer 4

How small is very small for you? I've used MFC before and gotten sub 200k files. Though I don't know if you're OK with DLLs though.

MFC is a pretty safe bet on Windows, though it is quite old and ugly (in my opinion).

Answer 5

Forget MFC if you need no runtime dependencies. WTL is lightweight.

Answer 6

I would use Delphi and have a look at this. Delphi compiles into a single file executable, is easy to learn (object pascal), has a nice IDE and one of the fastest compilers available. And if you get Turbo Delphbi 2006, it is even free!

Answer 7

It depends on which language you are planning on using.

• PowerBasic
• Delphi
• Microsoft Visual C++ (with or without statically linked MFC/STL/WTL libs)

All these will create a standalone .exe without the need for any runtime.

Answer 8

Another possibility is REALBasic. It will create a native exe, but may require a couple of DLL's depending on the gui components used. The base exe file size is ~3MB, which may be too big for your needs.

Answer 9

It depends, I think, how much UI you require. The benefit of frameworks such as MFC is it wraps a lot of boiler plate code for you. However.. if executable size & dependencies are the major constraint, it can be quite fun to build a tiny app.

It's quite possible to build a Windows application with bare essentials (a dialog, etc) and make use of common dialog resources which will already be installed (e.g commdlg.dll).

To keep it as small as possible I'd recommend writing It with C++, preferably with the MSVC runtime for ease. The Win32 API is pretty easy to pick up in terms of the essential steps, e.g. registering windows and creating a message proc.

Can you be a bit more specific with what you'd like to know more about?

Answer 10

Though it's not really an active project anymore, I've used the V C++ Gui to write some small one-off tools in the past before I started working with Java. It's kind of an MFC-lite. But like I said, it's an inactive project now.

Does it have to be GUI? If not you could get away with using something like PDcurses to build a console application.

Answer 11

You can try HTA (HTML application) and make exe file with http://www.xneat.com/application-builder/index.htm

Answer 12

FLTK is another option for a fast light toolkit, it's also cross platform.
For quick an easy on Windows I would probably go with MFC, it's old and not the cleanest design but the support is built into MS tools and it's very easy to get a quick sample up and running.

ps. Using MFC with the free compiler is a bit tricky, if you only have Visual Studio express I would look at something like FLTK.

Answer 13

Just use C / Win32 api.
Unbeatable (exe < 1KB !)