Hi,
We currently produce four installers per OpenVPN 2.3.x release:
- 64-bit for Windows Vista+
- 32-bit for Windows vista+
- 64-bit for Windows XP
- 32-bit for Windows XP
The latter two will be dropped in OpenVPN 2.4 alpha releases, which are
due fairly soon[*]. That leaves us with one 32-bit and one 64-bit
installer. While that is not too bad, things could be simpler. Here are
a few suggestions:
1) Combine 32-bit and 64-bit installers into one
Is there a use-case for installing 32-bit OpenVPN on a 64-bit system?
If not, we could combine both 32-bit and 64-bit binaries into a single
installers and, at install time, select the correct ones to install.
This would increase installer size from ~1.8MB to ~3.3MB.
2) Drop the 64-bit installer altogether
This option was brought forth earlier, and while it felt to me like a
step back, I could not point my finger at any concrete issues. If you
know of any pros or cons, please speak up.
3) Hide the 32-bit installers better, but keep them available
Currently both 32-bit and 64-bit installers are displayed side-by-side
on the download page. Because of this it is difficult to tell how many
people really _need_ the 32-bit version, and how many just download it
out of habit, or by mistake. Making the download link for 32-bit
installer(s) less prominent would probably give us the answer. If
complaints started coming in we could backpedal real quickly.
Unfortunately 32-bit Windows systems are not going away anytime soon, so
"64-bit only" is not an option[**].
4) Maintain the status quo
Do not change anything.
---
Let me know which of the options seems most reasonable. It would be good
to reach some consensus before OpenVPN 2.4-alpha1 is released.
--
Samuli Seppänen
Community Manager
OpenVPN Technologies, Inc
irc freenode net: mattock
[*] All the major functionality is in Git "master" or is being actively
reviewed.
[**] E.g.
<http://news.softpedia.com/news/Microsoft-Explains-Why-Windows-10-32-Bit-Is-Still-Needed-469563.shtml>
