Windows Installation

[John Roth]

"Jonathan Gardner" <jgardn at alumni.washington.edu> wrote in message
news:7gdk8.277$ID.1679 at news.hananet.net...
> I have a free software program
(http://sf.net/projects/bttotalcontrol/) and
> I am having great difficulty writing an installation script for
windows.
>
> I don't want to use distutils because I am not writing a module - but
an
> entire distribution with images, data files, and executable programs.
I
> would like to put icons on the desktop and stuff in the start menu as
well.
>
> I am at a major disadvantage because I don't have access to a windows
> machine, and so I can't test anything directly. However, I do have a
few
> people who actively test for the project at home.
>
> Anyone have any suggestions on where I should go? Anyone can help me
out
> here?

I took a quick look at your project, and it seems like most of
what you want is simply copying files from your package into
appropriate directories.

Putting something into the start menu is dead easy. Just put a
link to the appropriate file into "c:Windows/Start Menu/Programs"
Note the blank, and watch your capitalization. Windows is
flaky about capitalization.

Putting an icon on the desktop is a bit more difficult. AFIK, that
has to go into the registry, and hacking the registry is not for the
faint of heart, especially if you're doing it remotely. Everything
else you said you want to do can be backed out manually,
with a little effort.

You didn't mention whether you wanted to register a file type
so a program gets launched when you double click a file. If so,
I'd really recommend getting an installer package - that's midlevel
registry sorcery. You might want to check the Vaults to see if
there is code you can use.

John Roth


>
> Jonathan
>