.NETZ 0.3

.NETZ is a free command-line tool that compresses and packs the Microsoft .NET Framework executable files in order to make them smaller. Smaller executables consume less disk space and load faster because of fewer disk accesses.
Unlike binary executable packers .NETZ is written in C# using a pure .NET solution. It can be used to pack .NET executables written in almost any .NET language.
.NETZ supports both .NET EXE and non-shared DLL files. The compressed applications can be used the in same way as the uncompressed ones, transparently to the end user. Custom compression providers can also be implemented to add specific features.
Version restrictions:
- NETZ does not replace any compiler switches. Raw .NET modules or resources can be embedded with compiler switches.
- Native DLL or EXE files are not supported. Other tools exist that compress these files. The .NET DLLs that use external native functions or unsafe code are, however, supported.
- .NET DLLs that are shared by more than one application, not packed with .NETZ are not supported.
- .NET managed C++ assemblies (EXEs or DLLs) are not supported. The Managed C++ compiler optimizes the PE file and the IL metadata in ways that are not understood by the .NET generic Assembly loader methods (Thanks to Klaus Bonadt, Klaus.Bonadt [at] gmx.de, that remainded to add this point).
- .NETZ handles a limited number of the main EXE attributes. It is not possible to handle all arbitrary attributes automatically. Other attributes need to be specified manually.
- In general the DLLs that cannot be compressed with .NETZ also can not be embedded with the -s option. A solution is to create temporary files, but this is not considered acceptable for .NETZ, for various reasons.
- .NET CF is (can) not supported. However, the capabilities of .NETZ are not needed for Windows CE applications before CE5, because the CE OS compress all the data by default. This feature was, however, removed in CE5.
- .NETZ does not-in-place decompression of the compressed data. This means that the applications packed with .NETZ require slightly more virtual memory than the original unpacked versions.