Installer packaging

I know this isn't the biggest issue facing the world right now but:

Can anyone explain to me the purpose of the current zip-file inside a zip-file packaging of things like TK?

The latest release is contained in CBusToolkit-1.17.0.2624-CGate-3.2.0.1674-Setup.exe, a compressed installer file weighing in at 162M. However, it is distributed in a 162MB zip file which contains the release notes alongside CBusToolkit-1.17.0.2624-CGate-3.2.0.1674-Setup.zip, the latter being the 161MB zip file containing only CBusToolkit-1.17.0.2624-CGate-3.2.0.1674-Setup.exe.

Therefore to run the installer after downloading it you have to extract C-Bus-Toolkit_V1.17.0.zip to access CBusToolkit-1.17.0.2624-CGate-3.2.0.1674-Setup.zip, and then extract that to access CBusToolkit-1.17.0.2624-CGate-3.2.0.1674-Setup.exe, by which point you've used nearly 0.5GB of disk space before you even start.

I understand the idea of combining the .exe installer with the release notes inside one .zip, but the additional zipping of the .exe within all that seems unnecessary.

What am I missing?

 

You are correct. one other benefit of the ZIP is if it unzips you know the exe is not corrupted in the download process.

 

True, although I have to ask how frequently download errors like this really are these days. As Ashleigh says installers can include integrity checking anyway and I'm sure TK installers are signed (and therefore checked not only for download errors but also that they're the exact binary released by the organisation that it claims to be from).

I said before that I can see an argument for release notes inside a zip with the .exe, and that's still true, but I think even that is pretty weak. Having release notes as a separate download (so you can find out easily if this download fixes something you have an issue with, for example, before downloading it) makes sense. And release notes should be included in the installer so that they're installed alongside the application. Additionally having them in a download file alongside the installer is overkill.

So it would be really nice if TK were to adopt simpler packaging where the 140MB download is the installer, not a package containing a package that contains the installer. Is anyone listening who can propose that to someone who can implement it? Or who can explain why it's a bad idea? (I can't think of any equivalent applications that have a similar Russian doll approach to downloads, aside from PICED of course!)