Just virtualized Lightroom 3.6 on the same XP SP3 image within VMWare Player twice using the same steps but different versions. ~170MB compressed from 4.6.0; ~370MB compressed from 4.7.3. No idea why 4.7.3 is making such huge output builds, but it's definitely something to consider when making portable apps - use 4.6.0 for smaller builds.
Hi bloggingpig, you can produce with 4.7.x the same small files. VMware has just changed the default compression rate to save time during the build prozess. Read the Package Reference Guide [1] or just use "OptimizeFor=Disk" in Package.ini like this: [BuildOptions] OptimizeFor=Disk [Compression] CompressionType=Fast details: CompressionType=none --> big output file, but fast app start CompressionType=fast --> compress all files but no *.exe files OptimizeFor=Memory --> fast app start, low compression OptimizeFor=Disk --> small file, but slower app start If you have time for experiments, you can also change the Blocksize (but IMHO better leave the default value) [1] vmware.com/pdf/thinapp47_packageini_reference.pdf Page 47, 48,... VMware benchmark with thinstalled MS Office 2003: compr.-none: build time about 3min, filesize = 448 MB, startup time = 0,1s compr.-fast: build time about 19min, filesize = 257 MB, startup time = 1s -- btw, another nice option is to kill the small VMware popup-window with this line in Package.ini: [BuildOptions] .ShowSB=0