Application Bundles on Windows

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If you have ever looked at the Contents tab in Install Monitor you will realize that applications do not install to just one place. Usually there are several different registry and file locations used. The registry tends to get hit the hardest and in general becomes a virtual junkyard for any software you have ever run. Registry cleaners profit of this situation by claiming to speed up your computer by removing some of this junk. They usually take a long time to run and leave it up to the user to decide if something is safe to remove.

 

 

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The contents pane in Install Monitor

 

 

Ideally an application should be bundled together to a single directory instead of all over the system. Interestingly prior to Windows 95 applications generally installed themselves into a single directory tree. Also Apple’s Mac OS X uses the concept of application bundles. Basically an application bundle is all the items an application needs to run grouped together. Notice how the idea of an application bundles is similar to Install Monitor’s contents pane. Install Monitor is able to keep track of what items are required by each application by monitoring the install. In effect each program becomes a “bundle.”

 

 

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In Install Monitor each program is a “bundle”