Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[Alexander Carôt]

Hello to anyone who replied to my question,

 

thanks a lot for the answers - I will now try to figure what works best for me - probably MSI - we'll see.

 

Best

 

Alex
 

--
http://www.carot.de
Email : alexan...@carot.de
Tel.: +49 (0)177 5719797

 
 

Gesendet: Dienstag, 21. April 2020 um 11:04 Uhr
Von: "Yves Maurischat" 
An: interest@qt-project.org
Betreff: Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

Am 21.04.2020 um 10:55 schrieb alexander golks:


...
For Qt itself it may be great, for other (differentyl structured)
projects it's often not worth the hassle.
...




besides, is there an easy offline upgrade way available now using IFW?


Not sure, as I haven't had that requirement yet. In my current project upgrade means: install a new version with a different version number into the same directory, leaving the old one in place (for which I had to go at great lengths to work around the problems I mentioned before, no solution for the registry thing though).

Mit freundlichen Grüßen | Kind regards,

Yves Maurischat
Senior Software Engineer

basysKom GmbH
Robert-Bosch-Str. 7 | 64293 Darmstadt | Germany
Tel: +49 6151 870 589 -144 | Fax: -199
yves.maurisc...@basyskom.com | www.basyskom.com

Handelsregister: Darmstadt HRB 9352
Geschaeftsfuehrende Partner: Heike Ziegler, Alexander Sorg  ___ Interest mailing list Interest@qt-project.org https://lists.qt-project.org/listinfo/interest



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Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[Scott Bloom]

I use CMake + Innosetup + windeployqt

It makes the process very very simple.

Scott

-Original Message-
From: Interest  On Behalf Of Björn Schäpers
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2020 11:41 AM
To: interest@qt-project.org
Subject: Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

Am 21.04.2020 um 09:19 schrieb "Alexander Carôt":
> Hello all,
>
> I consider shipping my Qt built software with a conventional installer on 
> Windows.
>
> Can anyone give me a recommendation of a solid freeware for this purpose ?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> best
>
> Alex
>
We use Innosetup at Work for that. I've not used any other tools, but when I 
started I made the migration from Innosetup 4 to 5 and did some online 
comparisons beforehand. I came to the conclusion Innosetup was still the best 
choice.

Regards,
Björn.

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Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[Elvis Stansvik]

Den tis 21 apr. 2020 kl 09:21 skrev "Alexander Carôt" :
>
> Hello all,
>
> I consider shipping my Qt built software with a conventional installer on 
> Windows.
>
> Can anyone give me a recommendation of a solid freeware for this purpose ?

Just to chime in to what others have said: Our project uses CMake and
we use CPack which in turn uses WiX to create an installer for us.

I did not have to learn too much WiX wizardry, just a basic
customization to make it associate certain files with out application.
It has worked well so far.

We also use

set(CMAKE_INSTALL_UCRT_LIBRARIES ON)
include(InstallRequiredSystemLibraries)

to get the C runtime DLLs (including Universal CRT) installed
alongside our application, and then use windeployqt + CMake's
fixup_bundle to get the rest of our dependencies installed alongside
the application.

Cheers,
Elvis

>
> Thanks in advance,
> best
>
> Alex
>
> --
> http://www.carot.de
> Email : alexan...@carot.de
> Tel.: +49 (0)177 5719797
>
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Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[Björn Schäpers]

Am 21.04.2020 um 09:19 schrieb "Alexander Carôt":

Hello all,

I consider shipping my Qt built software with a conventional installer on 
Windows.

Can anyone give me a recommendation of a solid freeware for this purpose ?

Thanks in advance,
best

Alex

We use Innosetup at Work for that. I've not used any other tools, but when I 
started I made the migration from Innosetup 4 to 5 and did some online 
comparisons beforehand. I came to the conclusion Innosetup was still the best 
choice.


Regards,
Björn.

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Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[Steve Atkins]

On 21/04/2020 08:19, "Alexander Carôt" wrote:

Hello all,

I consider shipping my Qt built software with a conventional installer on 
Windows.

Can anyone give me a recommendation of a solid freeware for this purpose ?


WIX. Something of a learning curve, but worth the effort.

Cheers,
  Steve

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Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[Yves Maurischat]

Am 21.04.2020 um 10:55 schrieb alexander golks:

...
For Qt itself it may be great, for other (differentyl structured)
projects it's often not worth the hassle.
...


besides, is there an easy offline upgrade way available now using IFW?


Not sure, as I haven't had that requirement yet. In my current project 
/upgrade /means: install a new version with a different version number 
into the same directory, leaving the old one in place (for which I had 
to go at great lengths to work around the problems I mentioned before, 
no solution for the registry thing though).


Mit freundlichen Grüßen | Kind regards,

*Yves Maurischat*
Senior Software Engineer

basysKom GmbH
Robert-Bosch-Str. 7 | 64293 Darmstadt | Germany
Tel: +49 6151 870 589 -144 | Fax: -199
yves.maurisc...@basyskom.com | www.basyskom.com

Handelsregister: Darmstadt HRB 9352
Geschaeftsfuehrende Partner: Heike Ziegler, Alexander Sorg
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Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[alexander golks]

Am Tue, 21 Apr 2020 10:46:02 +0200
schrieb Yves Maurischat :

> ...
> For Qt itself it may be great, for other (differentyl structured) 
> projects it's often not worth the hassle.
> ...
> 

besides, is there an easy offline upgrade way available now using IFW?

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Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[Yves Maurischat]

I wouldn't recommend the Qt Installer Framework, due to its complexity 
and some problematic features. It's targeted at installing Qt, but can 
be a PITA for projects with a different apporach:


On Windows it always creates registry entries pointing at the 
(automagically generated) uninstaller. You cannot disable this. This is 
especially problematic i.e. if you have a collection of independent 
packages (maybe the same library in different versions or different 
libraies taht all should go into the same directory) and dont want to 
ship them all in the same installer, but one package per installer. Qt 
IFW doesn't allow installing into a directory that already has an 
uninstaller of anothzer package in it. Deleting an uninstaller does not 
remove the registry entry, and finding ist manually or using a script is 
basically impossible as it creates an unknown UUID key in the registry, 
that you cannot get ahold of while installing the package.


Another problem is, that unassisted installations without UI (i.e. on a 
remote machine without an X-Server) are not possible, but I guess  
that's only a problem on non-Windows systems.


Also Qt IFW has a kinda backwards approach to installation steps: you 
actively have to remove steps/UIs you dont want to use, instead of 
adding those you actually want to use.


For Qt itself it may be great, for other (differentyl structured) 
projects it's often not worth the hassle.


Mit freundlichen Grüßen | Kind regards,

*Yves Maurischat*
Senior Software Engineer

basysKom GmbH
Robert-Bosch-Str. 7 | 64293 Darmstadt | Germany
Tel: +49 6151 870 589 -144 | Fax: -199
yves.maurisc...@basyskom.com | www.basyskom.com

Handelsregister: Darmstadt HRB 9352
Geschaeftsfuehrende Partner: Heike Ziegler, Alexander Sorg

Am 21.04.2020 um 09:36 schrieb Dmitriy Purgin:

Hello Alexander,

you could try Qt Installer Framework: 
https://doc.qt.io/qtinstallerframework/index.html


Cheers
Dmitriy

On Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 9:20 AM "Alexander Carôt" 
mailto:alexander_ca...@gmx.net>> wrote:


Hello all,

I consider shipping my Qt built software with a conventional
installer on Windows.

Can anyone give me a recommendation of a solid freeware for this
purpose ?

Thanks in advance,
best

Alex

--
http://www.carot.de
Email : alexan...@carot.de
Tel.: +49 (0)177 5719797

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Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[Nils Jeisecke via Interest]

Hi Alex,

Coming from a Qt background, Qt Installer framework would be an obvious
candidate. I've not used QIFW but IMHO the installer part is one of the
things that do not really cry out for cross platform.

So in the past I tended to use NSIS for Windows installers. It's
powerful, strange and quirky at the same time.

Today, I'm using MSI. That's still the native way to go on Windows. MSIs
basically consist of a cabinet file containing the files to install and
a database describing the modifications on the target system.

To build MSIs it's worth digging into the free WIX toolset starting with
one of the examples. WIX provides an XML based abstraction of the MSI
database and tools to bootstrap XMLs and build MSIs.

Yes, there's a rather steep learning curve (and you should not be
allergic to GUIDs ;-) but the setup will be well maintainable and
scriptable (basically XML files + your scripts to put things together).

For a good introduction I'd recommend the book: "Wix 3.6: A Developer's
Guide to Windows Installer XML". It also gives valuable information
about not-so-obvious challenges like multi-lingual setups.

Yes, there are a lot of badly authored MSIs in the wild - usually thrown
together using mainstream tools I will not name here. Please don't blame
Windows Installer for this.

Nils

Am 21.04.2020 um 09:19 hat "Alexander Carôt" geschrieben:

Hello all,

I consider shipping my Qt built software with a conventional installer on 
Windows.

Can anyone give me a recommendation of a solid freeware for this purpose ?

Thanks in advance,
best

Alex


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Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[Vadim Peretokin]

Hello,

If you're targeting normal users and not sysadmins, I'd recommend Squirrel
instead: https://github.com/Squirrel/Squirrel.Windows

Qt Installer Framework works but it has aesthetics targeting 2010, not 2020.

On Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 9:37 AM Dmitriy Purgin  wrote:

> Hello Alexander,
>
> you could try Qt Installer Framework:
> https://doc.qt.io/qtinstallerframework/index.html
>
> Cheers
> Dmitriy
>
> On Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 9:20 AM "Alexander Carôt" 
> wrote:
>
>> Hello all,
>>
>> I consider shipping my Qt built software with a conventional installer on
>> Windows.
>>
>> Can anyone give me a recommendation of a solid freeware for this purpose ?
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>> best
>>
>> Alex
>>
>> --
>> http://www.carot.de
>> Email : alexan...@carot.de
>> Tel.: +49 (0)177 5719797
>>
>> ___
>> Interest mailing list
>> Interest@qt-project.org
>> https://lists.qt-project.org/listinfo/interest
>>
> ___
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Re: [Interest] Windows installer for Qt programs

[Dmitriy Purgin]

Hello Alexander,

you could try Qt Installer Framework:
https://doc.qt.io/qtinstallerframework/index.html

Cheers
Dmitriy

On Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 9:20 AM "Alexander Carôt" 
wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I consider shipping my Qt built software with a conventional installer on
> Windows.
>
> Can anyone give me a recommendation of a solid freeware for this purpose ?
>
> Thanks in advance,
> best
>
> Alex
>
> --
> http://www.carot.de
> Email : alexan...@carot.de
> Tel.: +49 (0)177 5719797
>
> ___
> Interest mailing list
> Interest@qt-project.org
> https://lists.qt-project.org/listinfo/interest
>
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