Some history…
I started the Nero Lite project about 2 years ago. At that time I just discovered how to build an unattended Windows XP setup. Using nLite I could gain some extra space on my installation cd, and I would like to have Nero included with it.
One problem, the Nero 7 installer was about 140 MB in size and including it would leave no space for anything else. As I didn’t need the full suite stripping the installer was the key to success. I read about modifying the existing installer on MSFN. It turned out to be a hard process and knowing modifications were different for each update I decided to build my own installer for Nero 7.
I chose Inno Setup for its ease of use and built in features, like the possibility to select different components and multi-language support.
Updating the Nero 7 Lite installer to the latest version was a lot of work each month, so automating the process was necessary. This was the beginning of the Nero Lite SDK.
When Nero 8 was released it was even bigger than Nero 7. Almost all binary files had loads of visual resources inside them. Nero 8 Lite would now become two times as big as Nero 7 Lite. I already had experience modifying resources for Nero 7 Micro, but trimming Nero 8 down was a much bigger project.
Automating this resulted in building resource scripts for every file included meanwhile keeping track of application breaking changes.
During this project I have fixed loads of bugs in the installer, implemented new features and tried to keep Nero working properly on each update. I even ported back most changes to support latest Nero 7 updates.
To maintain such a large project is very useful to me, and automating does save some time after all.
You can download latest Nero 7 Lite, Nero 8 Lite and Nero Lite SDK (for developers only) here.
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11 Responses to “Some history…”
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i was wondering if there is a version of Nero Micro for Windows 9x/Me; i believe the last version Nero released for those operating systems was 7.2.7.0
It’s a shame that Nero keeps getting bloated up even more with each version. Thank you SO MUCH for the wonderful job that you’re doing.
Thank you for this.
I was having soooooo much trouble installing the full N8 (update & trial versions) & it kept asking for a file that apparently doesn’t even exist, ie. vcredist.msi & the install would not proceed. Much frustration set in.
I found your site link from After Dawn & inst. N8 Lite without any problems at all.
Much more pleasant to use as compared with the full bloated version of N8.
One of the things I needed from Nero initially was Backitup as well as normal CD & DVD burning but it appears with Lite that I cannot do a Backitup or am I missing something?
If I can’t, then I will need to find it elsewhere, but your version of Lite will do me for all the general stuff I need to do.
Well done & thank you again.
Hi Acheron,
Why you didn’t release the 8.3.2.1b version yet?
We appreciate your work and we are waiting for the next release. Thanks!
Hi,
I finally switched to Nero Lite 8.3.2.1b after years with Nero 6 (It was acceptable and I loved the tight GUI – look at 7 and up). Maybe better support with blank discs now and a fresh release.
But if you had started with updatepack.nl on Nero 6 I’d switched already years ago. ;P
Hi,
Thanks heaps for what you are doing. It is really helpful for my machine, which only have 40GB hard drive.
Cheers
Big thanks, i from Russia and i very like Nero Lite, it super!
Great job – i thank you very much für your wonderful work.
Well done!
If there are no plans of creating a lite version of Nero 6, could you share some tips/suggestions on how we can safely skim it down ourselves?
Thanks for such as effort!, really this version rocks.
Thank you very much for the dedication and the altruistic view of enabling it to us all.
Everything ok, except that foobar2000 does not recognise this Nero version (8.3.13.0) for burning directly from foobar.
Thanks again
Rui