How does microsoft compressed Visual Studio installer?

[blackcoder41]

If you've downloaded Visual Studio Express Edition you may have notice that it is only about 700mb. I tried to uncompressed the package then try to compress it myself but I get a huge file. I've been searching google for hours (or days, since this is not my first try) to find the answer but still no luck.

Can you please tell me what software I can use to achieve this kind of compression for ISO format? Preferably open source but commercial software would do.

[Duthomhas]

They compress a little program that uses the internet to download stuff.
:-O

[blackcoder41]

No that's not it, I mean the offline installer. You can install this without internet connection
http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/E/5/1E5F1C0A-0D5B-426A-A603-1798B951DDAE/VS2010Express1.iso

[Duthomhas]

Hmm, I'll have to check it out later. (It is waaay past time for bed.)

[chrisname]

Try 7zip. It uses the LZMA algorithm which is the best I know of.

[blackcoder41]

yeah I've been using 7zip since then, but I want ISO format (cd image) just like microsoft did.


anyways, thanks for dropping by.

[Mythios]

I think you can use 'imgburn' to create a folder into a .iso if thats what you're looking for. Great program and it's freeware.

Just had a look, can't find an option to do this. Sorry - I have a program that does do it somewhere. I'll keep digging.

[blackcoder41]

Ok thanks for helping to research, I'm still searching up to now.

[blackcoder41]

Ah, I give up. There's no information I can get on the internet. I guess it's a microsoft secret.

[1yR4jE8b]

That's what I figured, some proprietary MS magic that they'll never share with anyone.

[Duthomhas]

There's no such thing.
Lossless, super-mega compression ratios don't exist.
Not even at Microsoft.

An ISO file is simply a copy of a CD-ROM filesystem packaged into one file for us people in PC-land to port around easily.

There is probably an auto-run exe/script on said filesystem/CD that unpacks all the stuff that is necessary for VS to work.

A CD rom holds a large amount of data. An IDE -- even a fancy one like VS -- doesn't need all that available space to hold all its stuff. The file you linked to me is pretty big -- 694MB. That is plenty of room for all kinds of extras and the like.

So if you can create a compressed installer for your program and put it in an ISO image, you'll have done the same thing MS did.

Hope this helps.

[blackcoder41]

Did you try to download it?

An ISO file is simply a copy of a CD-ROM filesystem packaged into one file for us people in PC-land to port around easily.

That is exactly what confuses me. If I am making an ISO copy of a CD, the ISO and CD always have the same size and the CD would have to be burn on a CD-R. In the case of this Visual Studio Image the ISO image is only 694mb that should fit on a 700mb CD-R, but when you open the image in a software like PowerISO or Daemon Tools, it would inform you that it is an image of a DVD and needs to be burn on a DVD-R which have the size of 1646mb.

I hope I am making sense here and I hope you understand my english.

[firedraco]

Just because it a < the size of a normal CD doesn't mean it IS a CD.

[blackcoder41]

Yeah I know, but that is not the point here. All I want is to fit that 1646 MB package to a 694 MB ISO file just like Microsoft did. I've been searching for answers since visual studio 2008 but now 2010 is out and still no answers.

I will just assume that this is a company secret, anyway thanks to you all.