Hi Mike,

Yes, when I said 'unpacking everything first' I was referring to a real
installer, not to a simple self-extracting archive.

Let us build an installer for one of our typical Consulting projects.
16,239 files (a wide range of different data and file types, including
already highly-compressed Microsoft redistributables) in 1,195 folders.
Uncompressed data size: 1,915,610,890 bytes. Compressed data size with
WinZip: 1,313,939,159 bytes.

We create 1.) a SetupBuilder 10 installer including uninstaller, 2.) a
"non-solid" self-extracting RAR, 3.) a "solid" self-extracting RAR and 4.)
an installer with a known product (let's name it Install*****; Price:
$3,999). The test environment is running on a super-high speed NVMe SSD
(M.2 Standard).

1. SB10 installer and uninstaller (fully scripted deployment logic)

Compression : LSPack (backward compatible to Win95)
Generation Time : 2:15 minutes (135 seconds)
Original Data Size : 1,915,610,890 bytes
..EXE Size : 1,305,516,271 bytes
Decompression Time : 0:37 minutes (37 seconds)
Compression Ratio : 31.85 %

2. Self-extracting RAR (no deployment logic)

Compression : RAR
Generation Time : 5:38 minutes (338 seconds)
Original Data Size : 1,915,610,890 bytes
..EXE Size : 1,250,190,748 bytes
Decompression Time : 1:20 minutes (80 seconds)
Compression Ratio : 34.74 %

3. Self-extracting "solid" RAR (no deployment logic)

Compression : RAR
Generation Time : 6:49 minutes (409 seconds)
Original Data Size : 1,915,610,890 bytes
..EXE Size : 938,196,668 bytes
Decompression Time : 1:05 minutes (65 seconds)
Compression Ratio : 51.02 %

4. Install***** installer and uninstaller (scripted deployment logic)

Compression : LZMA (top speed only ~26 MB/s)
Generation Time : 21:19 minutes (1,279 seconds)
Original Data Size : 1,915,610,890 bytes
..EXE Size : 921,881,111 bytes
Decompression Time : 1:43 minutes (103 seconds)
Compression Ratio : 51.88 %

As you can see, there is a direct relation to compression ratio, performance
(and efficiency). If compression ratio is more important than compression
and decompression speed, then LZMA wins. The generation of the LZMA and RAR
files always takes much longer and requires more memory (e.g. LZMA takes
1,279 seconds compared to 135 seconds with LSPack). The self-extracting RAR
executables always decompresses all files. The SB10 installer has full
deployment and uninstall logic for all 16,239 files. In other words, in 37
seconds SetupBuilder does not only decompresses the 16,239 files but it also
executes the deployment logic for each and every file (including uninstall
generation).

For installation development systems, there has to be a good balance between
compression speed (affects the developer), decompression speed (affects the
customer) and compression ratio (affects developer and customer). But who
knows, maybe there will be a new lossless compression algorithm in the
future which can provide both great compression ratio and speed :-)

Friedrich