Stand Alone EXE

[Brett]

A little country called the USA, and there are a LOT of dialup users here.
Judging from the transfer rates from my webserver, a whole lot of my
customers are using dialup (more than %50 if the stats aren't telling
lies)..

Yep - it's still pretty bad here in the way of dial-up. Same with cell
phones but that's another newsgroup.

Brett

 

[Cor Ligthert]

Mitchell,

A little country called the USA, and there are a LOT of dialup users here.
Judging from the transfer rates from my webserver, a whole lot of my
customers are using dialup (more than %50 if the stats aren't telling
lies)..

I hope that I did not make you angry, you are right, we cannot compare
countries as Andora, Liechtenstein and the Netherlands with the USA.

Cor

 

[Michael A. Covington]

I went to the Thinstall site and they sure make it complicated just to
get a trial or even pricing! Normally when a company wants to sell
something, they make it as simple as possible.

Touche'. They should ADVERTISE A PRICE.

 

[Michael A. Covington]

How will they continue to sell Thinstall when the next version of Windows
comes out and everybody already has .NET ?

Simply as an obfuscator/encrypter? For $4K?

 

[Michael A. Covington]

Your idea sure isn't a bad one! I could see something just to bundle the

.NET libraries around an executable as a MAJOR seller to .NET developers.
Obviously no trivial task, but certainly possible.

Can this be done by stringing together some Microsoft utilities in a
sufficiently sophisticated way?

 

[Michael A. Covington]

A little country called the USA, and there are a LOT of dialup users here.
Judging from the transfer rates from my webserver, a whole lot of my
customers are using dialup (more than %50 if the stats aren't telling
lies)..

Crucially, we are a SPARSELY POPULATED country. An awful lot of us live
more than 50 miles from a large city and more than 5 miles from even the
center of a small town. That's very different from Cor's country (which I
presume is the Netherlands).

 

[Brett]

How will they continue to sell Thinstall when the next version of Windows
comes out and everybody already has .NET ?

Simply as an obfuscator/encrypter? For $4K?

If that is their cash cow and they aren't creative, then they go out of
business. Every one that purchased their $4k Thinstall is left without
support and upgrades and evetually abandons it for .NET deployment.

 

[Mitchell Vincent]

Can this be done by stringing together some Microsoft utilities in a
sufficiently sophisticated way?

I don't know but I've never seen anything about it.. If you find
anything please let us all know!

 

[Mitchell Vincent]

Mitchell,




I hope that I did not make you angry, you are right, we cannot compare
countries as Andora, Liechtenstein and the Netherlands with the USA.

Cor

Haha! I try not to get angry, Cor, so no worries there my friend!

I *wish* we had broadband in every area around here!

 

[Mitchell Vincent]

Crucially, we are a SPARSELY POPULATED country. An awful lot of us live
more than 50 miles from a large city and more than 5 miles from even the
center of a small town. That's very different from Cor's country (which I
presume is the Netherlands).

My town (po-dunk as it may be) just got *affordable* cable modem access
and DSL about 18 months ago. Hard to believe!

 

[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

You give people the option to download the Framework or stand alone EXE.
Explain the benefit of download the Framework as it applies to future .NET
apps they may use. If they are on dial-up and still don't have .NET
Framework, chances are they probably won't for a while. In that case,
they'll more than likely choose the stand alone EXE.

That's certainly an option. Of course, it means running all your tests
on both versions unless you're *really* trusting of Thinstall not to
change behaviour at all (which I certainly wouldn't be).

 

[Herfried K. Wagner [MVP]]

If you want to write a shareware app and know most people that are going
to use it are on dial-up, what are your options? 20+ megs is out of the
question in this case.

Use Delphi, VC++, or another programming language that doesn't rely on
separate libraries.

 

[David Pendrey]

I just found another program which looks like it will do the trick and it
costs a lot less. Check out http://www.molebox.com
It doesn't explicitly say it can handle dot net applications but it looks
like it is cpaable of placing the necesary DLL files within the EXE file so
it should be good. I'll be doing some more research into this and I'll let
you all know. A program which costs $99 is a lot more affordable than one
that costs $4000

 

[Brett]

I just found another program which looks like it will do the trick and it
costs a lot less. Check out http://www.molebox.com
It doesn't explicitly say it can handle dot net applications but it looks
like it is cpaable of placing the necesary DLL files within the EXE file
so it should be good. I'll be doing some more research into this and I'll
let you all know. A program which costs $99 is a lot more affordable than
one that costs $4000

Good research David. Molebox doesn't support .NET yet and has no schedule
to. They say support should be available by the time Longhorn is released,
which will come with .NET. Seems as though they get to the ball game a
little to late.
http://www.molestudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=243&highlight=net

Brett

 

[Jim Hubbard]

That's certainly an option. Of course, it means running all your tests
on both versions unless you're *really* trusting of Thinstall not to
change behaviour at all (which I certainly wouldn't be).

Thinstall doesn't change behavior. Once the EXE is created, it does not
change unless you tell it to update itself or the files it contains.

Cool thing about this is that when Microsoft issues a Service Pack that
scerws up something, your Thinstall app is not affected.

If you create a Thinstall app that works, it will always work unless
Microsoft goes and changes the way windows works at a core level......which
is unlikely.

Jim Hubbard

 

[David Pendrey]

Damn, just in time to not be usefull

 

[Jim Hubbard]

Only the third of these is different from normal life with .NET Framework,
as far as I can tell...

But it sounds useful.

As for #1 - As we saw with SP6 for VB6, Microsoft is perfectly capable of
and willing to (not intentionally) send out service packs that break old
functionality. With Thinstall .Net applications, there is no danger of that
happening.

As for #2 - Even under .Net, users need admin rights to install a .Net
application if that application utilizes the registry. Not so with
Thinstall applications.

Jim Hubbard

 

[Jim Hubbard]

Hi Jim,
I was very excited about Thinstall until I got this pricing from
Jonathan:


1 Application License per unit with Basic support $4,000.00

That is outrageous. For those who dont believe it, here is the link he
sent me to get that pricing

https://thinstall.com/store/index.php

He definetly needs to rethink his pricing structure! I do agree with
all you are saying. Thinstall's philosophy is the right way to go for
XCOPY to really work and they could make a killing if they set thier
price points correctly. I am a single developer creating custom
applications for some fairly large food processors. No way can I
afford that price. A few hundred dollars and it is tempting. I believe
Jonathan should rethink the possible/probable price/volume curve if he
did price this aggressively...let's see, how many millions of .Net
programmers?...

The price is a little steep for freeware or small software shops, but there
is a reason for the price.

Although Thinstall is very useful, the vast number of options it affords the
developer usually means a great deal of hand-holding and one-on-one
development assistance while the developer "learns the ropes". This support
is not cheap for Jonathan and the only other option is to leave developers
hanging with only written instructions or charge for hourly support (which
most customers won't go for).

Jonathan (like myself) would rather do it right and make every customer a
success story than to have legions of customers that may or may not be
satisfied.

I have to go with Jonathan on this one. Running my own business, I have
learned the hard way that going cheap only causes lots of lost sleep, upset
customers and a so-so reputation. I abandoned this WalMart approach as soon
as my customers weren't being taken care of like I would like to be taken
care of (like I am the most important customer the company has - even if I'm
not).

Jonathan's company (JIT) takes care of you like you are the most important
customer they have. They go far beyond just answering a question or
two....they learn your product and goals and offer suggestions to maximize
your profits. If needed, they will also create small demo applications
specifically for what you need to do - because seeing it done is always
better than hearing how it should be done.

Jonathan takes calls himself and stays in touch with his customer base. He
is a real "hands on" company president. Not because he has to be, but
because he wants to keep an eye on the quality of their product and customer
service.

I speak from experience on all of these points. He has helped me personally
with my projects. He has developed demos personally to help me understand
the possibilities that Thinstall affords developers and how those Thinstall
capabilities can help me acheive my goals.

Admitedly, I am a fan of Thinstall and the support I have recieved from
Jonathan Clark and the JIT team. I am so because of the product, service
and personal treatment by the JIT team.

If this unabashed endorsement of a product makes you queasy, I apologize.
But, if you try Thinstall, you'll understand why I am such a fan of it and
the JIT team.

Jim Hubbard

 

[Michael A. Covington]

As for #1 - As we saw with SP6 for VB6, Microsoft is perfectly capable of
and willing to (not intentionally) send out service packs that break old
functionality. With Thinstall .Net applications, there is no danger of
that happening.

Updates to .NET have distinct version numbers (already 1.0 vs. 1.1) and
software is tied to a specific one; you can have both installed on the same
machine. Ending "DLL Hell" was a specific goal of .NET.

As for #2 - Even under .Net, users need admin rights to install a .Net
application if that application utilizes the registry. Not so with
Thinstall applications.

Surely only if you write in a part of the Registry that requires
administrator privileges to access.

 

[Michael A. Covington]

The price is a little steep for freeware or small software shops, but
there is a reason for the price.

Although Thinstall is very useful, the vast number of options it affords
the developer usually means a great deal of hand-holding and one-on-one
development assistance...

But if you price it out of most programmers' reach, it never becomes well
known to the programming community. It may make sales, but it won't make
history.

If it were $99, I'd use it for the demo version of one of my apps, so that
users could download and try it without any awareness of .NET.