Best Practices for Creating Lightweight Installers Without Losing Key Features

[jeffreestar]

Hi everyone,

I’ve been working on packaging an application with Advanced Installer, and one recurring challenge I face is finding the balance between:

• Keeping the installer lightweight (so end-users don’t have to download a very large file), and

• Ensuring all necessary prerequisites and resources are bundled for a smooth installation.

In my case, including .NET runtimes and some third-party libraries makes the package grow quite large. On the other hand, leaving them out sometimes causes errors for end-users who don’t already have the required components installed.

I’d love to hear from the community:

• Do you usually bundle everything into a single installer, or do you prefer web-based installers that download prerequisites on demand?

• Any tips or best practices you’ve discovered to reduce installer size while keeping reliability?

• Are there specific Advanced Installer features (like prerequisite conditions, compression settings, or custom actions) that you find especially helpful in solving this problem?

Looking forward to your insights—I think this is a common issue many of us run into when trying to optimize the user experience.

[Catalin]

Hello and welcome to our forums,

In case of prerequisites, you can have them web-based which means they will be downloaded at install time.

Of course, this means the end-user might need to have an active internet connection for this to work.

Best regards,
Catalin

[konopelski]

Hello and welcome to our forums,

In case of prerequisites Sprunki Game, you can have them web-based which means they will be downloaded at install time.

Of course, this means the end-user might need to have an active internet connection for this to work.

Best regards,
Catalin

How should I handle the situation where a prerequisite, such as the .NET runtime, receives a critical security update? Do you rely on users to update it or do you have a process to push a new version of the installer with the updated prerequisite?

[Catalin]

Hello and welcome to our forums,

You can release a new version of your package that also contains the newer version of the prerequisite.

This will ensure that your users stay up to date.

Best regards,
Catalin