Compressing Your Setup Files

See Also16WVDFO

If all the files for your application will not fit on a single floppy disk, you can compress the files using the COMPRESS.EXE utility in the \SETUPKIT\KITFILES subdirectory.  Compressing your files might reduce the number of disks required to distribute your application.

COMPRESS.EXE is an MS-DOS-based utility, not a Microsoft Windows-based application.

To compress a file

         At the MS-DOS prompt, type:

          compress -r filename

The -r switch replaces the last character of the compressed file's file name with an underscore.  For example, to compress the file LOAN.EXE, type:

          compress -r loan.exe

The result is a compressed file named LOAN.EX_

Note   The -r switch is required when compressing files that are installed using SETUP.EXE or SETUP1.EXE.

You can compress any file on the distribution disks except SETUP.EXE, SETUP.LST, and VER.DLL.  You can compress as many files as you want.  VER.DLL correctly copies both compressed and noncompressed files to the user's disk if you use version 2.0 of COMPRESS.EXE, which comes with the Setup Toolkit.

Compressed files automatically return to their original name when expanded on the user's disk.For information on COMPRESS.EXE, see the file COMPRESS.TXT in the \SETUPKIT\KITFILES subdirectory of the main Visual Basic directory.