Is there a way to allow build of "large sized" ThinApp exe?

[toca1337]

Back in the days of Thinstall, there is an option to allow building of "large sized" Thinstall/Thinapp executables (up to 2GB in size, as I called).

In more recent versions of Thinstall, this option has entirely disappeared, such that one is "forced" to use a .dat file to be the larger container with a much smaller executable.

In one of the environments we are operating, we need each app to consist of only a single .exe file with no .dat file.

Is there any option in ThinApp to disable the mandatory use of .dat containers?

[Phil_Helmling]

Toca

, you can still do this today. In the Setup Capture wizard, you get the option to select the primary data container. By default, if the size of the package is greater than 100mb (I think this is the number, maybe someone else can confirm this if its important), then Setup Capture automatically selects to use a DAT file

You can select an entry point instead

however when you do it gives you the following error

I believe the reason for this is that NTFS has issues showing icons on files greater than 100mb on older OS's and about 2GB on WinXP.

Phil

[pbjork · Accepted solution]

When Setup Capture thinks the package size will be greater than around 200MB will it suggest the usage of a separate data container, you can override this in Setup Capture. Reason being the Entry Point icon might take up to 20 minutes until it is displayed because of Windows OS.. So this recommendation is purely an end-user experience feature.

If Setup Capture thinks the package will be larger than 1.5GB will Setup Capture force you to choose a separate data container. Reason being Windows OS will deny execution of an exe file larger than 2GB. Our limit of 1.5GB is just to be on the safe side. You can still override this though.. Simply manually tweak the package.ini.. I do not believe our build process will care about the size at all. But be aware an .exe file larger than 2GB will not execute and this is due to a feature in Windows OS nothing ThinApp can do anything about.

In order to manually override the 1.5GB limitation simply get rid of the .dat Entry Point and move the ReadOnlyData=Package.ro.tvr to your .exe Entry Point. Make sure you delete the Shortcut= part for the .exe Entry Point as well.,

[toca1337]

pbjork, Thanks for the reply. I actually have been doing that (the way you described it) and was looking for an easier method. Strangely, I often found that ThinApp tends to overestimate the final size of the executables. Even more strangely, there have been many cases when my final build size exceeded 2GB and the app still runs fine. Can you clarify why the latter may be the case?

[pbjork]

I’m not a developer so I’ll have to guess here, I suspect the Windows OS limitation of a 2GB large executable is due to a 32bit OS limitations. Could it be that the file larger than 2GB was launched on a 64bit OS?

[Lakshman]

The setup capture bundles the application installer along with the ThinApp project files in the %SystemRoot%\Installer that results in huge file size of the ThinApp executables.

Do not delete the entire folder as the icons sometimes refer to the ARPPRODUCTICON.exe file that is present under this folder. Just remove the setup/MSI cache from this folder and rebuild by running build.bat.

This will reduce the size of the ThinApp executable.