Determining Cause of Size Variance Between Two MSIs..
Hi all,
I'm puzzled (Again!). I have a single .ism file that contains two releases, not wrapped in a setup.exe, but compressed into .msi's.
The release flags for each are as follows...
Common - components common to both releases Standard - only contains a registration .ini file Pro - only contains a registration.ini file x86 - components to only be placed on 32 Bit systems x64 - components to only be placed on 64 Bit systems.
The only difference between the two releases is the Standard and Pro flags.
When I build the .msi's, the Standard package is 105 MB. When I build the Pro package, it results in a 95 MB package. How can I tell what is causing the difference. A single entry .ini file, which really is the only difference, shouldn't cause that much difference. ??
I tried .msi differencing, but couldn't really find anything either.
Any info would be Greatly Appreciated, as always!!
It seems that when I deleted the smaller of the two packages first, then recompiled, it recompiled with the larger size.
I wonder what caused that. I didn't see a quick compile option like I used to have available in Wise. I think that would just package differences instead of compiling the entire package. I can't find such an option in InstallShield - is there one? If so, I'd like to turn that off. I want complete recompiles each time.
To ensure these releases are including the expecting features, we would recommend using the MsiDiff utility to compare the table data between them. If there are less files in one package compared to the other, this would then likely account for the size difference since these are compressed packages. Without looking at a diff of the two MSI's, it will be difficult to determine what is causing the size difference.
I just deleted the smaller package from the output folder and recompiled the installation and the files were then virtually the same size as expected.
That is why I asked about a quick build feature described earlier that was part of Wise products. I was just wondering if there was anything similar at play in InstallShield.
The build is always a full rebuild (meaning a new MSI is started from scratch) unless you select 'Build Tables Only' or 'Build Tables and Refresh Files' or their equivalent keyboard shortcuts from the Build menu.
One thing that can potentially result in size differences between builds is using dynamic file links. If the files contained in the dynamic link paths vary from build to build, this will impact the size of the MSI (but will also produce differences in the File and Component tables of the build MSI).
