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The size of the .NET redistributable.   [Edit]

Survey period: 4 Jun 2001 to 10 Jun 2001

What is the maximum acceptable size for the .NET redistributables? (For reference: W2K SP2 - 100Mb, Netscape 6 - 16Mb, Java 2 RE - 7.4Mb, Adobe Acrobat - 5.2Mb)

OptionVotes% 
< 1.44Mb2710.5527 votes, 10.55%
< 5Mb4818.7548 votes, 18.75%
5-10Mb4316.8043 votes, 16.80%
10-15Mb176.6417 votes, 6.64%
15-20Mb155.8615 votes, 5.86%
20Mb+145.4714 votes, 5.47%
It's irrelevant, as long as it fits on a CD and doesn't take up too much of my HD6023.4460 votes, 23.44%
I'm never going to install it - so it's a moot point.3212.5032 votes, 12.50%



 
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GeneralMFC looks sexy!!memberAnonymous5 Jun '01 - 6:40 
With all these discussion of young but fat babes (err .NET), MFC finally looks pretty slim and sexy (with only < 1Mb of runtime)
GeneralRe: MFC looks sexy!!memberAnonymous5 Jun '01 - 6:47 
>> young but fat babe..
 
You mean BBW, LOL..
GeneralRe: MFC looks sexy!!memberTomasz Sowinski5 Jun '01 - 6:53 
Believe or not - I have seen the store with clothes labeled MFC - "Madonna Fashion Collection" Poke tongue | ;-P
 
Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com.pl
GeneralRe: MFC looks sexy!!memberChristian Graus5 Jun '01 - 20:26 
It's a funny thing - I get the feeling that people were negative about MFC when it came out ( too big, too slow, need to distribute a .dll, but I can write perfectly good programs without it, &tc. ), and I'm curious to see in a year or two if .Net/C# becomes as much the assumed path for a developer as MFC is today. Don't get me wrong, there are times when Win32 is a good choice, and MFC will remain a good choice. Heaven knows I'm not head over heels with the whole VS7 thing, but it just seems to me that if people accept .Net, they will eventually take it for granted that you need to offer a run-time and hope your users have high speed internet or can wait for a CD.
 
Christian
 
#include "std_disclaimer.h"
 
People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.
 
The things that come to those who wait are usually the things left by those who got there first.

GeneralRe: MFC looks sexy!!memberJim A. Johnson6 Jun '01 - 15:57 
The really ironic thing about this is that MFC does not require any redistributables - that's a false assumption spread by the MFC team, which wanted to see MFCxx.DLL installed on every machine in the world, so that MFC-based ActiveX controls would become palatable..
 
Just say NO to dynamically linked MFC! :')
GeneralRe: MFC looks sexy!!memberAlex Taylor6 Jun '01 - 16:00 
This is true, but while I do static builds a lot of the time, the fact is for files that are going to be downloaded, it's nice to trim down the size for people who have the dll.
 
Alex
GeneralRe: MFC looks sexy!!memberChris Meech8 Jun '01 - 9:27 
Oh no. Is Christian going over to the dark side? Big Grin | :-D
 
Say it ain't so, Joe Smile | :)
 
Chris
GeneralRe: MFC looks sexy!!memberChristian Graus8 Jun '01 - 13:16 
Not at all - my opinion remains what it is, I'm just willing to consider that if .Net becomes a fait accompli for most people who have a PC, then a lot of the things we now discuss as issues will be taken for granted. It's happened before, there are still people who think MFC is unwieldy and a bad idea, and ultimately most users could care less if their performance is being hurt by a CLR or that all their code is running through a virtual machine. One thing M$ have always been good at, especially with their OS, is to take the steps forward our PC's make in speed, and swallow them up in GUI components, etc.
 
Christian
 
#include "std_disclaimer.h"
 
People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.
 
The things that come to those who wait are usually the things left by those who got there first.

GeneralWhy should .NET be a redistributable?memberChristian Skovdal Andersen5 Jun '01 - 6:03 
In the end is propably does'nt matter how big a download the .NET environment is, since it will be something that people download once or install with IE/Service packs etc. I do not think that it normally will be something you redistribute with every program that uses it.
 
Some of my programs depends on Internet Explorer being installed, but I do not redistribute IE with the program because of that.
 
Christian Skovdal Andersen
GeneralRe: Why should .NET be a redistributable?memberAnonymous5 Jun '01 - 6:35 
>> In the end .....
We still need a very long way (10 yrs minimum?) to go for .NET to be part of every system. Remember, a lot of our customers won't be upgrading to .NET - loaded operating systems (WinXP.. etc.) soon.
GeneralRe: Why should .NET be a redistributable?memberChristian Graus5 Jun '01 - 14:21 
We rely on DX and IE and put both on our CD. It's nice for us to assume people will be as up to date as we are, but thesad fact is that the people buying our software buy a PC and are unlikely to spend money on a new OS or download a new browser. They simply don't care enough and are probably too scared to mess with it.
 
If your software will run on a P166, then it needs to come with everything missing to make it run under W95.
 

 
Christian
 
#include "std_disclaimer.h"
 
People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.
 
The things that come to those who wait are usually the things left by those who got there first.

GeneralRe: Why should .NET be a redistributable?memberUlf5 Jun '01 - 19:19 
It probably depends on how often .NET will be updated after the initial release. For instance, I always distribute MDAC, because there are so many versions and mixed pieces of different versions floating around on people's computers.
 
> it will be something that people download once or install
> with IE/Service packs etc.
 
Once? Really? I wish I could share your optimism Smile | :)
 
--------------
"Criticism is often constructive because it makes you feel superior when you give it"
-- Dogbert
GeneralRe: Why should .NET be a redistributable?memberNorm Almond6 Jun '01 - 3:35 
MDAC is the curse of all evil, the version problems I've had with it, I wouldn't know where to begin.
 
Lets hope .Net doesn't go the same way, although MS claim to have solved the version nightmare with .NET - we'll wait and see.
 

GeneralRe: Why should .NET be a redistributable?memberAlex6 Jun '01 - 2:02 
I figure that .Net is a huge punt on broadband (hello BT, and welcome to the 20th century!), that being the case I can't see CD's / DVD's being used for relatively small packages like service packs for very much longer. If we say that the average user will wait say 5 minutes, that's about half a CD's (CD's how quaint!) worth at 1Mb.
 
.Net must be part of the O/S itself, like COM+. So we're back to checking the service pack level on each machine.
 
Out of curiosity what proportion of your redists (by MB %) are stuff for compatibility eg. ADO2.6, MFC runtimes etc
 
Al.
 
ATL Student Roll eyes | :rolleyes:
GeneralRe: Why should .NET be a redistributable?memberJoseph Dempsey6 Jun '01 - 2:57 
look how many apps still package the MFC dll... .NET will be no different.
 
Joseph Dempsey
jdempsey@cox.rr.com
Joseph.Dempsey@thermobio.com

"Software Engineering is a race between the programmers, trying to make bigger and better fool-proof software, and the universe trying to make bigger fools. So far the Universe in winning."
--anonymous

GeneralIrrelevant because don't use it!memberAjit Jadhav4 Jun '01 - 6:33 
I voted irrelevant but not for the reason given.
 
What matters, at least as of today, is whether I can install it for playing with it side by side with my main Win32, MFC, ATL, etc enviro, which is stable, on the same machine. I am not yet willing to convert a whole machine only to .NET. So, I end up not doing anything with it (except read architecture and C# articles here and there). When MS ships stable bits (may be still in beta, but sufficiently stable) on MSDN CDs, I might become serious about .NET. Until then, the size question is simply not relevant.
 
So, a general q to .NET enthusiasts: How frequent and serious are reboots etc. due to .NET installation on your machines? If "once/fortnight or so" and "does not corrupt data on HDD" are your answers, may be I will start targetting some of my dev on .NET.
 
-------
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. (Francis Bacon)
Nature, to be apprehended, must be obeyed. (Ayn Rand)

GeneralRe: Irrelevant because don't use it!memberEarl Rex Arao-arao4 Jun '01 - 16:45 

Yeah, I agree with you. As long as I could play with it with my Win32 and MFC its okey. By the way can we have the cd
for a drive test?Smile | :)
 

 
" Sharing ideas to others is better than keeping
to itself"
GeneralRe: Irrelevant because don't use it!memberRussell Morris5 Jun '01 - 6:31 
I've had the VS.NET environment crash more than I'd like, but I've *never* had to reboot my machine because of it. I've never had pre-existing data corrupted (I have lost unsaved code because of a crash, but that's to be expected in a crash Smile | :) . After a crash of VS.NET, it will restart it automatically and you can keep on chugging.
 
However, I don't have VS6 on that computer...
 
--
Russell Morris
Georgia Institute of Technology
 
"Lisa, just because I don't care doesn't mean I'm not listening..." - Homer
GeneralRe: Irrelevant because don't use it!memberAjit Jadhav5 Jun '01 - 7:42 
Thnaks for your feedback.
 
Guess I didn't ask the really pertinent question.... I can always take backups of really important data before installing .NET, so that aspect is not all that important. So, the questions I should have asked are:
 
(i) Can I have both .NET and VC++ 6 running on the same machine at the same time without issues like incompatible system dlls/registry settings etc.?
(ii) Will a .NET crash corrupt the OS to the extent that I have to reinstall VC++? The OS itself? (Not a guaruntee, just a dev-2-dev feedback is being sought here.)
 
Clarifications:
- On this m/c I plan to use VC++ for the usual MFC/ATL kind of work--not WDM or so.
- "at the same time" means: I might try C++ in my virtual morning and C# in the virtual evening (i.e. the two won't exactly run in the multi-taksing sense.)
- "on the same machine" means on top of the same OS installation (i.e. on the same partition). The OS is Win2K Pro.
- Pl. address w.r.t. the latest MSDN distribution of .NET.
 
Thanks!
 

-------
Nature, to be commanded, must be obeyed. (Francis Bacon)
Nature, to be apprehended, must be obeyed. (Ayn Rand)

GeneralRe: Irrelevant because don't use it!memberKannan Kalyanaraman6 Jun '01 - 20:53 
I have VC6 and .NET Beta 1 installed on the same machine.
I never had any problem.
 
Cheers
Kannan
 

 

GeneralIt's irrelevant, as long as it fits on a DVDmemberStephen Kellett4 Jun '01 - 5:15 
It's irrelevant, as long as it fits on a DVD.
 
Bloatware, you know you love it.
 
Stephen Kellett
--
C++/Java/Win NT/Unix variants
Memory leaks/corruptions/performance/system problems. UK based.
Problems with RSI/WRULD? Contact me for advice.

GeneralRe: It's irrelevant, as long as it fits on a DVDmemberTomasz Sowinski4 Jun '01 - 8:04 
> It's irrelevant, as long as it fits on a DVD
 
ROTFL!
 
BTW: what's RSI/WRULD?
 
Tomasz Sowinski -- http://www.shooltz.com.pl
GeneralNo F'in way...memberChris Losinger4 Jun '01 - 3:33 
...am i going to require people to download anything over 2MB.
 
-c
 
------------------------------
Smaller Animals Software, Inc.
http://www.smalleranimals.com
GeneralRe: No F'in way...memberChris Maunder4 Jun '01 - 4:16 
LOL!
 
Why don't you tell us how you really feel.
 
cheers,
Chris Maunder
GeneralRe: No F'in way...memberChris Losinger4 Jun '01 - 4:20 
it's monday AM (here, anyway). i thought i'd start the week on a cranky note! Smile | :)
 
but seriously, since all my stuff is download-only (no CDs), size matters. the extra download/distribution requirement for MFC-DLL builds is the reason i only do static MFC builds. the EXE is somewhat larger of course, but you don't have to hassle with DLL versions, huge downloads, etc..
 
-c
 
------------------------------
Smaller Animals Software, Inc.
http://www.smalleranimals.com
GeneralI believe it will be 8 - 12 MbmemberJohn McTainshz3 Jun '01 - 20:53 
I hear it will be arround 8 - 12Mb. These sizes were mentioned at a MSDN talk by some Microsoft developer.
GeneralRe: I believe it will be 8 - 12 MbmemberChris Maunder3 Jun '01 - 21:10 
I've heard lots of different numbers - some wishful thinking, and some pessimistic. How long ago did you hear this?
 
Maybe we need a CodeProject sweepstake.
 
cheers,
Chris Maunder
GeneralRe: I believe it will be 8 - 12 MbmemberAndrew Peace4 Jun '01 - 8:05 
Hmmmmmm...........
 
Yay !! Another CP Competition Smile | :) !!
 
> Andrew.
GeneralRe: I believe it will be 8 - 12 MbmemberRichard Melton4 Jun '01 - 16:04 
You need to be careful, some of the .Net developers might lose focus and start managing the spread.....
 


GeneralRe: I believe it will be 8 - 12 MbmemberAnonymous5 Jun '01 - 15:08 
I think you heard old news. Current thinking is not to try and squeeze the redist size but to ensure that everything required ships at once. Working set size and load time are big focus areas. I'd bank on 15MB personally. In the end it won't matter as the redist will ship with EVERYTHING: the OSes, Office, IE, Service Packs, the code project explorer bar, everything.

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