Question

We have an installer for our application that has the file dotnetfx.exe when the installer runts this file is executed and you get a message saying that the microsoft.net framework is being downloaded.

Now we are using .net 4.0 and the redistrubutable for it is 49MB and it doesnt download anything. Im assuming that explains the size.

What im wondering is…is there a .net 4.0 installer that that is smaller in size and does this ‘downloading’ of data like the .net 2.0 one does?

Answer 1

That is the correct size of the .net 4 redistributable framework. .net 3.5 was much, larger than this and microsoft worked very hard to cut the size down to this for the 4.0 release. 3.5 was absolutely huge and in my opinion practically unusable for redistribution because of its size.

.net 2 was around 23-26 meg and so the .net 4 framwork release is not terribly larger than the 2.0 framework.

I redistribute the 2.0 framework with a software installation and I do not have a “downloading” message of any kind during my installation. I include the 23 meg dot net 2 framework file in the installer which increases the size of our software setup ~23 meg.

If your last installer which used the 2.0 framework did not have the 23 meg file included and instead downloaded it, this was most likely a feature of your installation script / installation softtware itself and I do not believe that it has anything to do with the .net 2.0 framework redistribution file itself.

If you have access to your install script, definitely review the installation script and and you will most likely find that the “downloading of 2.0” feature that you like is just a feature of your installation tool / software.

So, if you like this feature, I would assume you can most likely set this up in your installation script so that your 4.0 framework also can be downloaded rather than included in the setup directly if you prefer this method of installation.

Definitely check your install script. I hope this helps. 🙂