DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer June 2010

DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer is Microsoft’s updater for the 9.0c and previous versions of DirectX Redistributable. Unlike the latter, the application requires an Internet connection, as it downloads content from Microsoft’s servers, with the advantage of being smaller in size.

The upside of the updater is that it extracts data dynamically, grabbing only the files that your computer lacks in order to be up-to-date. On the downside, it may cause some discomfort to users with an unreliable network connection.

If you’re not sure you need a DirectX update, there are two simple ways of checking that. You can either run the dxdiag utility (from the run command) or use the DirectX Version Checker, an application that aside from verifying the version of the DirectX installation, also informs you about DirectX Debug Levels, DirectShow Filters and DirectInput Devices.

However, there’s no harm in running DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer. It features a smart engine that allows it to first analyze the current DirectX installation, retrieve a list of all available files from Microsoft’s servers, compare the data against local items, grab the non-existent updates on your computer and deploy the newest ones. It all ends with a cleanup operation of the DirectX installation (removes obsolete files).

The whole process doesn’t take more than a few minutes, way faster than a complete DirectX deployment. This is, in fact, the whole purpose of this package – minimizing installation time. Moreover, it’s an effortless operation for the end-user.

In conclusion, DirectX End-User Runtime Web Installer makes it very easy to grab the latest version of DirectX. It’s a faster and smarter alternative to installing the whole DirectX Redistributable package.