I'm a little late reading this topic.  I usually stick to the tech threads. 

After quickly reading over some of the previous posts, they got me thinking a little outside the box on the problem.  It seems to be hard but do-able to create a good installer that doesn't confuse the technilogically challenged end users.  Also including them can create sizing problems.

Maybe it's easier to to this now with version 2 of XNA.  I haven't seen any success or complaint posts with the new process.

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Irregardless, I'd like to propose an interesting idea:  Perhaps, its time for Microsoft to create an exe that acts as the installer for all (free) windows capable applications/libraries/add-on's/etc. 

This application would be part of the Windows operating system, natively.  It would be updated with Windows update quite regularly.  The application itself wouldn't contain information about how to install, let alone the files needed to install.  Instead it would know where to go, on the Microsoft servers to launch the install. 

Something else this application does know, is what is installed.  For example, since there is no official way for us to know if version x of DirectX is installed, we could instead query the app, if such version is indeed installed.  Then as technology changes, and version x of the "some app", no longer uses the registry to officially keep install info, but instead that info can be found in the GAC, it would no longer be our concern as consumers of Microsoft technology to figure this out.  They simply provide us the application that does this for us.  Then they can change the way they do things, without breaking our reliance on the simple premice that this app will tell us whether something is installed.

So after, we query if application x is installed and its found to be missing, we also could provide another value that would try to launch the official Microsoft installer of said product.

Just my 2 cents.

How are things under 2.0 going for everybody, same issues?

Something that has bothered me for a while is, whatever the hell happened to Games for Windows Live?

I mean sure I've got Universe at War and Gears of War.. both titles include it.
Just it's not quite what Microsoft said it would be.

Sure I can now, message my friends if I'm on Windows and they're on Xbox 360 (or even cell to Windows/360); but I can't invite them to games from Messenger. In-fact apart from Shadowrun NO title is cross-platform compatible.
Something that seems a HUGE shame given Shadowrun SUCKS! Not like gameplay or such but just the fact it feels broken, and crashes a lot. Hense why I no longer own it on either platform.

Right now Steam really is what we need Games for Windows Live to be.

• Accessible from the Desktop, as all times
• Comprehensive Friends and Community system
• Can download Trial and Full titles
• Can download Movies
• Can download Development Tools for specific games
• Can add your own games to the game list, and have your Steam Friends always on-top
• Can add your own games you've built to Steam

Soon they're brining out an SDK specifically to allow things other than Source Engine games to take full advantage of the fact it is basically Xbox Live for Windows.

Sorry but, Windows Vista has everything in-place to really provide the exact same support as the Xbox 360.
So why the hell isn't it being used?

As for the redistributables, again... why are they not automatically updated when installed? It should be just like Visual Studio, Windows and Office. I mean for crying out loud, Epic added Gears of War to Windows Update; if they can do it for a game why can't you do it for Runtimes installed?

I also don't see what exactly is so difficult with web-installers for everything.
DirectX has one. 223KB for the installer, everything else downloads if it need to update. All of these should be built-in to Windows too; so when you need an update all you do is flag to check it... then Windows checks to see if the version you require is the version installed. If not then it installs it in the background, if so then continue with the next installation stuff.

Microsoft Dev (the Microsoft Installer Creator) used to allow you to set this stuff up. What's more what the heck is the point in having Download-On-Demand in DirectX, if the only time you use the damn thing is for Halo 2 for Vista?

All of these companies are using the technology you guys have created showing everyone what it can do, yet you guys (Microsoft) yourselfs keep saying stuff like "oh well there's all these issues trying to do it this way". It's bullpoop, if someone else can do it... you bloody well can too! Hell it's your damn technology, just actually talk to the other flipping depts.

I don't care about doing all these installations myself, but someone not so tech savvy you know those customers who generally buy Windows cause it's more user-friendly than trying to get things to run unlike on Linux and MacOSX... they're the ones who end up suffering cause you just don't really think about the little things like having the system auto-update when a library is required. For years I've been pulling my hair out to why the hell DirectX itself isn't automatically updated given it's hardly a large file and only takes a few minutes at most to download AND install.

You've made all of these systems to make our lives as developers easier, why on earth are you all so against using them?!

All of this nonsense?  Yeah, this is why Microsoft has lost me as an XNA developer.  With my first game finished in XNA, I'll be moving over to BlitzMax from now on.

That being said, there are already solutions out there that can reduce the pain of distributing XNA games.  The best one (that I haven't seen mentioned in this thread) is here:

http://www.codeplex.com/xnainstaller

The author managed to package all required redistributables into one install template and get the total size down to 27mb, including the October 2006 DX9 stuff.  All you have to do is state that your game requires Windows XP with SP2 (plus hardware requirements) and you're good to go.

That's not so bad, but you still have to deal with the long install time and informing the user that you're putting a ton of stuff on their computer.  Plus 27mb is still 27mb of padding that contributes nothing to your game content.  I wanted my demo to be that size, not twice it.

MS got to admit it,They got a problem with the sizes for me i faced this problem espcially somewhere like here in my country only few people who got a high speed connection it was frustration factor for my first game but when i looked at the bright side i still can use all the cool features of the XNA , Directx , etc also try to remember all high end games never miss the 3GBs to 4GBs size thats why i don't really give a big attention to this problem.

About the live arcade thing and Online rpgs just remember that no nice online rpg with size less than 100mbs(Silkroad , WOW , Guild wars , final fantasy,.... etc),just don't put the size as a big problem as it will be the first cause of your failure its just 70 or 80 megs added? i'm still saying that its a problem but its not as big as you made it and remember that dx , .net thing got fixed with vista releases as it had it so you just face problems with the 2Mbs of xna thats it!

We are starting to develop our first game for XNA. To start were just making a small game and was wondering with XNA 2.0 is it still as confusing for average PC users to download runtimes and get games working or has it made been made any easier with XNA 2.0?

There is no change in 2.0

However this is a developer problem NOT an end user problem. No game developer should rely on end users to get the prerequisites right. You should build an installer that ensures that the game will run.

The issues we have as developers is the large size of these items when we are forced to include them in our MSI files, and the lack of help from Microsoft in developing the installer solutions. (e.g. not supporting click once, no templates even though its pretty standard)

Cryovat:

Personally I think that all three ought to have been pushed through Windows Update, at least as recommended updates. Arguably, they're all key parts of the Windows platform and strategy, and thus they shouldn't be the job of third parties or the end user to provide.

A "me, too" post, but this is exactly what I was thinking.  Windows Update takes the burden off the end user.  If the user only has to be concerned with "updating Windows", which is almost handled for them, then the worries of DirectX, XNA, .NET, etc. will vanish.