Rex Dieter wrote: > Angus Leeming wrote: > >> But this will involve me in a lot more work with NSIS getting to grips >> with optional installation of components. I'm running out of >> LyX-time. I'm also running out of NSIS-enthusiasm. > > While having any sort of installer is better than none at all, I'd > suggest future effort re: Windows installers aim for an .msi target > (Microsoft Installer) format.
Fine. Having struggled with NSIS for the last month, I would love to see it die :( However, I think that Asger's point that we should stick with something that's both Open Source and actively developed. Notice also that you might like MSI, but others think that NSIS is better: http://www.peterprovost.org/archive/2004/01/19/1040.aspx I'm noticing that the install and uninstall runs so much faster than the Installshield or VS.NET msi files that I have been using. I mentioned NSIS a few days/weeks ago in one of my Geek Notes columns. Because my customer was very size sensitive, the project that we shipped last week used NSIS for its installer. The VS.NET/MSI installer we created was almost 4MB while the NSIS installer was less than 520K. And like Matt, I find the NSIS installers are much faster. The downside is that these installers are not MSI based. In fact, the reason the VS.NET installers are so big is that they bundle two copies of the Windows Installer 2.0 (ANSI and Unicode) within the installer. If you switch the deployment project properties from "Windows Installer" bootstrapper to "No bootstrapper", you can alleviate this, but you also can only run the installer on machines that are already running Windows Installer 2.0. > Then, those of us in AD environments can enjoy pain-free deployment to > (all) client machines. (-: At the cost of increased (quadrupled ?) download size. Can you explain why you can't just compile the NSIS installer on your "weird" windows box? How hard is $ <path to>/makensis lyx_installer.nsi ? > p.s. I'll be doing it myself for lyx-1.3.6 as a proof-of-concept (using > the Advanced Installer tool). Look forward to it. -- Angus
