> I have a customer who has many (Windows) computers on which Python and related > packages must be installed/updated on regular bases.
> One of their concerns is wininst based packages, which do not allow > unattended installation. Newer and greater MSI helps, but there > are legacy packages. > Can you give me opinion: > 1) Why pywin32 (Mark Hammond) is continued to be distributed > in wininst form? The bdist_msi packager is missing some features of bdist_wininst; things like adding of shortcuts, a "post_install" script that is capable of recording files to be uninstalled, communication of setup options to the install scripts, etc. > 2) If one prepares MSI package, are there foreseeable snags to distribute it in > 2.4 environment? See above - although I am currently working on bdist_msi so I can package an x64 version - this is likely to make it easier for me to use bdist_msi - although at this stage I'm not sure about moving all releases to bdist_wininst. > 3) I offered to consider development of wininst to msi (ready package) converter. What would such a converter do? For simple packages with an existing distutils setup script, you simply use a different command-line to create an MSI instead of an EXE, so a converter seems unnecessary. A converter could not address the issues I listed above either (ie, functionality available to the post-install script) > Is it stupid suggestion, or is it feasable (and easier than silencing of wininst)? > Would there be interest for such converter (my customer is willing to contribute to Python project)? Other alternatives include: * Open the .exe installer as a .zip file and simply copy the files into the target * Enhance bdist_wininst such that it supports args for silent install, then ask people maintaining the packages to use this new executable. I'd have no problem doing that. Cheers, Mark _______________________________________________ Distutils-SIG maillist - [email protected] http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/distutils-sig
