[Question] - Windows xp hotfix size differences!?!

[cumminbk]

well i noticed on a fresh install of windows xp with only sp2 intergrated that windows has you install Windows Installer 3.1 and KK898461 which, installs a permanent copy of the Package Installer.

Now after these updates are installed and pc is restarted 31 critial hotfixes are shown. the total size of these is 22.2 meg. now when i have these updates downloaded the size is twice that around 40 meg. why the difference in size? does installing ther permanent copy of the package installer reduce the size of ALL updates? i thought it just applied to the newest ones. Is it posable to download the smaller versions of the hotfixes that do not include the package installer in the hotfix itself?

Title Edited - Please follow new posting rules from now on.

--Zxian

Edited December 9, 2005 by Zxian

[cluberti]

Any hotfix produced after SP2 (and some before SP2) listed on the WU/MU site are reduced in size, due to the fact that the package installer (the actual "brains" of the update) is now included in the OS itself. That means that the package installer (roughly 650KB) no longer needs to be included in each patch, and only code to be updated is actually packaged to the WU/MU site.

While 650KB might not be a lot to those of us with broadband connections, it's quite a bit for someone on a dial-up or ISDN connection. And that's 650KB with every update that would otherwise have to be retrieved, which is horribly inefficient - as you've seen, it can be tens of megabytes that we can save a user from downloading when they need large amounts of patch data. There's no reason to include this in every patch if the update installer is the same for every patch, and the solution is to install permanently an (updateable) version of the package installer only once, and reuse that code for other updates.

Edited December 8, 2005 by cluberti

[cumminbk]

thanx for your reply. yea i understand about the entire installer package deal. what i was really wondering is if microsoft had all sp2 patches somewhere that did not have this bloated installer package included with it. I have them downloaded and installed from the microsoft update site there are a total of 22meg if i manually install them with the links from the Kb articles they are 40meg total for all 31. Where can i get copies of the smaller versions? when they are automaticly downloaed from the site whrere are they placed before install??

[cluberti]

Currently, Microsoft does not make these smaller hotfixes public, as a standalone hotfix still needs the package installer integrated to be able to be installed without being extracted (the WU/MU updates are extracted and installed from temporary folders on disk when downloaded).

[Bezalel]

There is an even smaller version called express updates available for WSUS users. These updates don't contain full versions of the files being replaced they only contain delta information for patching the existing files. You can install WSUS and download the full updates (without the package installer) or the express updates but its almost impossable to find the particular update when you navigate the content directory.