@ post11, i'm in agreement with you.
I also prefer to have all the offline installers.
my reasons is a few fold.
first. I hate crap ware. I hate them.
I get all mest up inside when i think of all that needless junk. after working with peoples pcs for years. I crindge to think of what I found in there.
secondly, space, since I run on a small SSD i'd love my space.
the fact that windows takes any ware from fifteen GB to 20 GB, annoys me to know end. yes, sure there's some dll's it needs, yes sure it has some protected files tucked away for rainy days. but in know dam way must a modern OS use up this much space. I get it, hardrives has plenty space these days.
but it feels to me programmers of windows has gotten lazy.
windows can function very well on just 8 gigs of space. I saw this, I experienced this. hell. its dooable.
but 15? 20? gigs, but so we go.
so, now, due to lovely Southafrica, and data being high priced, I hate online installers even more. so, mission offline installer, here we go.
here's a nice old example.
i've been using windows live mail 2011, the version without the ribbins, for years.
it just works. well. if i'd leave it to its own devices, it would install over 2 or 300 megs of crap ware i do not need.
so? hello offline installer,
take it one step further,
and if mails the only part you need? just untick all the boxes and you end up with fifty 2 megs of. huh? mail? choice gard, error reporting, upload tool? all that just to install the maill ap? no no no. lets do something about this.
just extract the .MSI files, then work out what dependencies it uses, wich is nicely built in to the package?
so lets see, it needs its little SQL installer, okay got that for it.
on older versions of windows it needs dot net 2.0.
but fortunately for us,
the newer versions of windows, does not have this requirement, so skip that hefty file there.
ah, skip the upload tool. skip the sign in assistant, skip choice gard.
ah so nice and cute, we now have. your self a nice little sweet beautiful 40 meg install.
ah the nice part of life.
now. good old dot net frame work. leave it up to windows? and you'll have gigs of space wasted on all the dam version of dot net you don't need. so?
again, lets see wich apps requires wich version of dot net. then, in sted of installing them all, just install the ones you know your apps will need.
nice nice.
i once, had a beautiful instelation ware windows only took up 8 gigs.
ah the joys. but sadly i had to apply security updates. and windows quickly munched up all my gigs. and settled back down to fifteen.
so their we go.
the short version, offline installers, is a nice nice thing to have. and if you happen to have some update role up patches, wich is also offline, hay you good to go.
saving you band with, data costs, and time.
I must be honest with NVDA I take the short cut. if i am managing a system, and do a clean install, I usually give the installer a unique name, then I also create a portable version of NVDA, and since I use custome setups.
i actually, once the language selection screen comes up in setup. instead of using narrator. I do a quick shift F10 wich brings up the command prompt window, then, I type to ware the portable NVDA resides,
then i breze through the setup. and just before the last setup screen, i quit NVDA and then hit next.
you may wonder why I just don't let NVDA run, well, I actually ran in to issues when testing this out and i had this more then once.
it seems windows does not like portable apps running while its finishing setup. smile.
so try that at your own risk, do not let NVDA continue to run when windows finishes setup. else it will behave weardly. and i've not found a fix for that. but you can certainly run it in portable mode, while setting up windows. provided that audio drivers or USB audio is ready for use.
There's a place for me in this universe.