Incremental increase in setup size

[Guest]

Hello...

I posted this a couple of weeks back, but could't get a reply, so trying
again!

I use the Setup project in C# to create a .msi file to be distributed to the
clients.
The size of .msi is 12 MB. This file works fine on all the target machines,
but on the development machine every time I remove the existing .msi (from
add/remove programs) and install a new version, the size increases by 13-14
MB.


Since i have to install the .msi multiple times... this size increase is
causing a lot of problems.... I am already on 200 MB


Any ideas what is going wrong? Is the uninstall not working as expected?
Everything is fine on the target machines though!

Thanks.

 

[Ashot Geodakov]

Which size are you talking about? The size of .msi itself, the installation
directory's size, or whatever shows in the Add/Remove programs UI?

Is the installation directory removed completely after the Uninstall, or are
there some 'leftovers' hanging there?

Does your installation create new Registry keys, which the uninstall process
does not remove?

 

[Tom Porterfield]

Hello...

I posted this a couple of weeks back, but could't get a reply, so trying
again!

I use the Setup project in C# to create a .msi file to be distributed to
the clients.
The size of .msi is 12 MB. This file works fine on all the target
machines, but on the development machine every time I remove the existing
.msi (from add/remove programs) and install a new version, the size
increases by 13-14 MB.

Since i have to install the .msi multiple times... this size increase is
causing a lot of problems.... I am already on 200 MB

Any ideas what is going wrong? Is the uninstall not working as expected?
Everything is fine on the target machines though!

If you are talking about the size reported in Add or Remove programs, that
number is known to be innaccurate on a good day. Perform an uninstall and
then manually check to make sure your installed files are properly removed
and any registry entries you created gone. If that is happening then you
should be OK to not worry about the size reported by Add or Remove programs.

 

[Laura T.]

The size "reported" by the Add/Remove programs is just an educated guess.
Not to worry too much.
(you can read more about it here:
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2004/07/09/178342.aspx).
If you see that happening from the disk usage, thats another problem.
If your program creates files under the installation directory at runtime (a
bad habit), the msi uninstall does not remove them, so you could have a lots
of runtime files under there that increase the size every time.

 

[Guest]

Thanks. I am referring to the size shown in Add\Remove Programs.

After the uninstallation, all traces from the Program Files\[Application
Name] folder are removed. I am not sure why it happens only on the Dev
machine and not on the client machines.

Also, I uninstall the application from Add\Remove programs.
But the incremental increase in size is something which is really strange!!!