From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Lennart Borgman" Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Emacs Installer for MS Windows Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 21:21:04 +0200 Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Message-ID: <003e01c48946$a8ebfad0$0200a8c0@sedrcw11488> References: <001401c478de$908a92d0$0200a8c0@sedrcw11488> <1091508072.20683.201576204@webmail.messagingengine.com> <4111491A.4090601@runestig.com> <4111D8D4.1040506@runestig.com> <1091693906.8538.201741376@webmail.messagingengine.com> <001d01c47afa$c1f5f170$0200a8c0@sedrcw11488> NNTP-Posting-Host: deer.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1093288988 18896 80.91.224.253 (23 Aug 2004 19:23:08 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 23 Aug 2004 19:23:08 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Aug 23 21:22:54 2004 Return-path: Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by deer.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #1 (Debian)) id 1BzKP8-0005hp-00 for ; Mon, 23 Aug 2004 21:22:54 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1BzKTb-0000y3-Ai for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 23 Aug 2004 15:27:31 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1BzKTU-0000xx-S6 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 23 Aug 2004 15:27:24 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.33) id 1BzKTR-0000xl-Re for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 23 Aug 2004 15:27:24 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.33) id 1BzKTR-0000xi-Jx for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 23 Aug 2004 15:27:21 -0400 Original-Received: from [81.228.10.115] (helo=av1-2-sn4.m-sp.skanova.net) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.34) id 1BzKOZ-00072f-9u for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 23 Aug 2004 15:22:19 -0400 Original-Received: by av1-2-sn4.m-sp.skanova.net (Postfix, from userid 502) id 7039D37E47; Mon, 23 Aug 2004 21:22:17 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from smtp2-2-sn4.m-sp.skanova.net (smtp2-2-sn4.m-sp.skanova.net [81.228.10.182]) by av1-2-sn4.m-sp.skanova.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5DA5937E47 for ; Mon, 23 Aug 2004 21:22:17 +0200 (CEST) Original-Received: from sedrcw11488 (t1o58p66.telia.com [62.20.164.66]) by smtp2-2-sn4.m-sp.skanova.net (Postfix) with SMTP id 8041437E63 for ; Mon, 23 Aug 2004 21:22:11 +0200 (CEST) Original-To: X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1409 X-MIMEOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1409 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: main.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:26427 X-Report-Spam: http://spam.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel:26427 I have been struggling a bit with the installer. First I want to thank you for all suggestions. I have tried to take a look at most of them. Further down you will find a summary of my personal view of some different installers for MS Windows. I decided to use Inno Setup. I had already done some work with it, it is free, it has good scripting capabilities (which I needed in this case). Now I would like some suggestions. I hope you do not mind. First about where to install Emacs. On ms windows most programs are installed in "c:\program files\" as I guess you know. I see some alternatives (which I illustrate with where emacs.exe is found): A) "c:\program files\emacs\bin\emacs.exe B) "c:\program files\emacs-21.3\bin\emacs.exe C) "c:\program files\emacs\emacs\bin\emacs.exe D) "c:\program files\emacs\emacs-21.3\bin\emacs.exe Which one would you prefer? What about using "c:\program files"? I include gnuclient and wonder where to put these exe-files. Currently I use a structure like C) and put them in "c:\program files\emacs\w32bin". I also put a copy of 7za.exe from 7-zip here to be able to unpack tar.gz files. (With permission from the author of course.) The installer also adds some elisp files that are ms windows specific or at least specific for ms windows users. Where should I put these? Is site-lisp a good place or should I use a separate directory not to mix it with the users own or downloaded lisp files? I have found it most easy to start up these scripts in site-lisp/default.el. Default.el is run after .emacs which means I can use customization without having to worry about the order in .emacs. It may sound a bit strange but the installation script has now grown rather large and I am thinking about where to put it. I must make it a bit more pretty so someone else than me can understand it but after this I want to upload it. I would like some suggestions of a preffered location. ************* Let me then make a summary of my reading on ms windows installers. Just if someone else should need it for something. (There is nothing else than this below in this mail.) I took a little dive into the Win32 Installer Sea. As far as i swimmed I saw three alternatives: 1) Inno Setup: Free, open source, copyrighted. (Not GPL. See license for details: http://www.jrsoftware.org/files/is/license.txt.) Win32 only. Well proven. Multilingual installations. Standard Windows 2000/XP-style or "classic" installer wizard interface. Small footstep, easy to use for all common tasks (file copying, checking admin privs, making shortcuts, adding registry entries, choosing tasks, running programs after install, uninstallation etc). The more common tasks are made in an INI-file like syntax. Object Pascal script for more complicated tasks. LZMA/Zip/Bzip compression *** I know this one fairly well *** 2) NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System): (Not GPL. License: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/features/license/.) Very similar to Inno Setup. Maybe not so well proven yet? Script syntax described by some as "more arcane" (I tend to agree here). Some additions: web installation, plug ins. *** I do not know this installer *** "For windows setup projects. I would highly recommend Inno Setup. http://www.jrsoftware.org/ It doesn't have the plugin architecture of NSIS, but you can write code in Object Pascal, which is a little less arcane than the pseudo assembler of NSIS." (http://www.peterprovost.org/archive/0001/01/01/1040.aspx) Comparing Inno and NSIS again: http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/04/09/nsis_an_open_source_installer_maker 3) Wix. I found it to be to much trouble taking a closer look at this. I did read most of the blog that David Kastrup mentioned that was released under CPL (not GPL) from MS: . The advantage seemed to be use of XML, but I did not see very good scripting facilities (but maybe they are there). There seem to be a free version that existed before MS released this. According to what I read the free version (which I can't remember the name of right now) seemed to be able to do all that the MS version could do and a bit more. - Lennart