Kontakt 5 setup is nearly 800mb in size. I installed it and after backing up the VSTi DLLs, I uninstalled the whole package. Not surprisingly the plugin still works. This worked with K4 too so I thought why not try it with K5.

My Question is: What future problems will I run into running K5 like this?

I checked the installed data and it seems that the impulse response samples take up most of the space. With the IR files gone, won't K5 give me some kind of error when it encounters missing data? And do sample libraries usually rely on these IR files? I have never encountered such an error with Kontakt 4 which I run sans the full installation.

Thanks!

 

@ Threadkiller,

Yes, the probability is of 99%, especially when loading a Preset that contains - in its FX section settings - the Convolution Engine; you can guess that it uses one of the IRs included within the 'Full' Kontakt Version ! hence the 'famous' small screen error that appears and indicate you to stipulate the path of the 'missing files'... (or to 'skip missing files'), but in this case... no IR is loaded !
Nevertheless, you can load afterwards one of your own IR within the Convolution Engine... but of course the preset will not sound exactly the same.
Furthermore, don't forget that if you want to use some Cabs simulators they also rely on some of the IRs that are included with the Full version !

Another remark is concerning :

Yes, totally right... though but we can still be happy thanks to the compressed proprietary format of Kontakt (.ncw format) that save us about 40% of disk space compared to the actual size (.wav format) ​

 

So you are saying there exists an error in case Kontakt finds no factory IR files? If that is the case then I have never seen this error proving that the libraries I use do not use any IR stuff, so I should feel safe using Kontakt 5 DLLs. Right?

Alas the audio data in Kontakt installation is not NCW compressed, its WAV.

 

@ Threadkiller,

I have attached a snapshot to clarify our discussion a little...



In fact you're partially right when asserting that the most part of the IRs included in Kontakt 5 come in .WAV format, it's true... but as you can see in the snapshot, and if you have more or less the same content that I have, I pointed with red arrows the three first folders : 01 Real Rooms, 02 Digital Reverbs and 03 Real Plate Reverbs. If you look within these folders you'll see that they content only the .nkp files (.nkp stands for Native Kontakt Preset), whereas the rest of the folders include both the .nkp files and a folder named IR Samples, where effectively the IRs are in .WAV format.

Also pointed with red arrows is the file named K4IR.nkx (and its properties and size to the right). This is the folder I told you when talking about Kontakt compressed proprietary format (.ncw). Within this file there's the IRs that match with the presets content of the three folders previously mentioned (01, 02 & 03).

So normally as long as your Presets use the IRs contained in the folders 04, 05, 06, 07,... you shouldn't face troubles for properly loading them, but you can guess that if you haven't the files K4IR.nkc & K4IR.nkx and that your Preset(s) use one of the IR settings (--> Convolution Engine) included within the three first folders, you'll get the error message screen asking you for the missing IRs.

Hope this may clarify a little our discussion and unravel the mysteries and depths of this monster that is Kontakt !!! *yes* ​

 

You do know you can just not install those right? It should be in the drop down tree in the install.

If it isn't then do like Studio said but I would suggest moving the large files to another folder or desktop and testing kontakt. That way you can make sure it's still stable with out deleting anything and needing to reinstall. Other than that his suggestion for turning the WAVS into NCW's would work as long as it accepts that file format for it's impulses.

But on the other hand I've never been a fan of inpulses in general. I've always gotten more solid methods to work but others I know like them.

As for the uninstalling... This can cause issues you just haven't found out about yet.

A: Large libraries will crash far more frequently
B: It can cause library presets to search/load every time instead of caching file locations
C: It can crash while saving preset multi's causes it not to save and to exit to a blank kontakt panel with no instruments or settings and will attempt to save like that to your file so you have to reload your multi and such.

If your trying to use it as a mobile version then I can understand and you just gotta put up with it, but if your just doing this on a desktop or a main writing computer then I wouldn't advise it. It'll turn into a headache when you start running high load/mem libraries.