.NET Framework 4.0 installation is very slow

On my Windows Vista, it takes a full 12 minutes to install the .NET Framework 4.0.

a) Is this normal?
b) If not, can something be done about it?

The reason I'm concerned about the speed is because it slows down the testing of our product installer considerably. Testing an installer is time consuming already, but this new .NET Framework installer makes it almost undoable.

Detail:

I did the test on a clean Vista inside a VirtualBox virtual machine. This setup does not show any performance issues in other situations.
I tried both dotNetFx40_Full_x86_x64.exe and dotNetFx40_Client_x86_x64.exe. They both take approximately the same time to install.

Dimitri C.

Posted 2010-05-26T13:21:27.087

Reputation: 2 232

consider yourself lucky I'm at 45 minutes and counting installing .net 4 – Chris McGrath – 2012-01-31T22:53:44.087

Answers

You don't have to test on a machine without .NET 4 every time you want to test the installer.

You can get a machine that is fully up to date .NET wise and use that to test the bits of your installer you have control over - i.e. the bits that install your software.

Every [n] tests you need to test on a machine without .NET 4 just to make sure that it still works as expected.

You don't say what other operating systems you're targeting, but you should also test on machines that don't have .NET 3.5 or even .NET 2 installed.

ChrisF

Posted 2010-05-26T13:21:27.087

Reputation: 39 650

+1 Addressing the issue underlying the question quite nicely. – T.J. Crowder – 2010-05-26T13:47:50.620

@T.J. Crowder: The underlying issue is that testing installers is already very time consuming, and I'd like to avoid the in my opinion rather big overhead of having to test on yet another platform variant. – Dimitri C. – 2010-05-26T14:01:54.810

Good remark; I doubt I'll have another option. But it is sad, because it means I'll have to test the installer on Windows XP, Windows XP with .NET 4.0, Windows Vista, Windows Vista with .NET 4.0, Windows 7 and Windows 7 with .NET 4.0. Not every time, that's true, but it makes testing both more complex and more time consuming. – Dimitri C. – 2010-05-26T14:06:16.440

Coming in late but: when I was testing installers, I used VMs. I could start the install on "clean" images of XP, XP with .NET, Vista, and 2000 simultaneously and they'd run at nearly the speed of physical PCs in parallel. If your company belongs to MSDN or is a Microsoft Partner, you can download installers and/or images of all the operating systems legally. – CarlF – 2011-08-12T21:04:29.737

Yes, it is pretty normal according to what i have seen. Why are you so concerned about it - it is a one time task, it's not like you have to do it every day?

slugster

Posted 2010-05-26T13:21:27.087

Reputation: 221

1Thanks for your response. I've updated my question with the reason why I'm concerned about the speed. – Dimitri C. – 2010-05-26T13:29:09.267

Try disabling the antivirus. When I disabled AVG "realtime protection" the .NET installer progressbar started moving 4-5 times faster.

jitbit

Posted 2010-05-26T13:21:27.087

Reputation: 360

this new .NET Framework installer makes it almost undoable.

I'm curious what changed for you. 2 and 3.5 both always took nearly that much time for me as well.

Joel Coehoorn

Posted 2010-05-26T13:21:27.087

Reputation: 26 787

.NET 2.0 is preinstalled on a Windows Vista machine, and installs reasonably fast on Windows XP. – Dimitri C. – 2010-05-26T13:55:48.157