PECompact Documentation

MS .NET compression

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This feature is currently in beta development, so use with caution.

PECompact compresses .NET assemblies quite differently than native executables. It uses a native code stub to decompress, reconstruct, and run the assembly in memory (no writing to disk is ever done). Compression of the .NET assembly is done via LZMA, and compression of the native code stub is done using whatever CODECs you have selected (LZMA by default). All PECompact plug-ins will be applied to the compressed executable, though the .NET code can only be compressed with LZMA.

Application shell icons, version information, embedded manifests, and other critical resources are properly preserved. Other resources are compressed along with the managed code.

As we continue development of this feature, it will improve in compression ratio and compatibility.

If your .NET assembly doesn't run after compression with PECompact, we want to figure out why so we can fix it for everyone. Please send us your .NET assembly and we'll work on it. You can email a link to your executable to support@bitsum.com. Note that at present there are no plans to ever support non-EXE .NET assemblies (DLLs). There are some technical challenges to this that we must first overcome.