You would be surprised how many applications still use batch files (even commercial software), it really isnt a Dos thing. Windows makes it convenient to just double click them, same as a shortcut... As a matter of a fact, you can even create a shortcut in windows to do the same thing as a batch file (especially for one liners). Anyway batch files are a convenience, they make things easier (when they work right), they are not a problem. A user doesnt know an exe from a lnk, they are not going to know the diffrence of a bat.

The only thing they can do to make it easier is make/use an installer.

Also Limewire is 7 megabytes, a 5 megabyte download (not sure about the autoupdate size). In reality its about 600 or so kilobytes. What is making it so large is the Virtual Machine you download with it.

And on another forumn I read that some people didnt like the file size, in comparison to other gnutella clients... Even Bearshare is rather small in size (1.3 meg download).

Phex is 1.7 megabytes total, a 1.6 megabyte download. It used to be 600 kilobytes (phex 300kb plus source code 300kb), but now that they added the sun XML parser it added 993 kilobytes. Suns XML libraries will eventually be a part of the standard Java2 library and phex will reduce in size again.

I dont mind that they release their source code, quite frankly in my own (Open Source) projects I am seriously considering doing the same thing because some people will just step all over you otherwise, I have found some of my files scattered every where before some with the binaries and others with the source code, very few sites had both, some even deleted the readme files, but this was a long time ago.

Personaly I like to treat the VM like a driver, like directx for example. You install once, and update as the software you use needs it.

Its also possible to create an exe file with out the VM overhead where you still need to have the VM installed before hand, but I dont know how to do it, personally, I have seen it used in the JXTA network project demos (atlhough it wasnt working when I tried it).

Anyway I still prefer