[vbox-dev] Size optimizations of multi-arch Windows distribution of VirtualBox

[Alexey Eremenko]

The Windows version of VirtualBox grew from 11 MB (v1.3.2) to 70+ MB (v3.1.0).

Biggest change took place from v2.1.x (40 MB) to v2.2.0 (65 MB), due
to multi-arch binary (32/64-bit combo).

Guest Additions ISO take a lion's share of space -- 32 MB (if 7zip
compressed it takes 20 MB)

Why is the multi-arch Windows setup is so fat ?

Possible optimization scenario:
-The multi-arch binary setup can include everything 32-bit (GUI, docs,
...), except the kernel drivers (vboxdrv and vboxnetflt) which should
be 32/64-bit. Do we need any other components to be 64-bit ?
-Which compression do we use? We can try to improve compression of
Windows installer. (LZMA anyone?)

Those optimizations can cut about 20 MB+ from VirtualBox binary setup.

-- 
-"Technologov"