The LexActivator documentation (for Delphi) states that " LexActivator has a dependency on VS2015 runtime on Windows".
Since there is no way to know for sure if an end user already has the redistributable installed, that means I will always have to distribute the 13MB VS2015 redistributable installation file with my app, just in case.
Is that correct?
VS2015 runtime comes pre-installed in Windows 10 and above. Whether runtime is installed or not it can be checked programmatically in installers.
OK. But since I don’t know what version of Windows the end user will be using, if the installer determines that the VS2015 runtime is not installed on the target machine the installer will then have to install it, which still means that I will always have to include the 13MB VS2015 runtime in my installer, just in case it needs to be installed.
You can just include the download link for the ones who need to download it.