OT: Python application deployment?

[Delaney, Timothy C (Timothy)]

> From: Nagy László Zsolt [mailto:nagylzs at freemail.hu]
> >
> Try NSIS (installer of winamp, made by NullSoft). It is free, makes a 
> compact installer and it has support for displaying eulas 
> (and many more).

I've recently evaluated a number of installers (to eventually replace Wise, but for now to wrap a couple of existing Wise installers).

My criteria were (in no particular order):

1. Size of final executable (esp. installer overhead);

2. Ease of development;

2a. Text-based installer script for ease of using version control

3. Standard Windows look & feel;

4. Speed and versatility of compilation (compiling custom installers as needed);

5. Ability to do everything else I needed (this one's a bit amorphous ;)

My two main options appeared to be InnoSetup and NSIS. InnoSetup was eliminated early by reading the FAQ, esp.

http://www.jrsoftware.org/isfaq.php#conditional

NSIS OTOH appears to meet all of my criteria. For example, it was quite simple to write an installer which was able to find older versions of the software and their (Wise) uninstallation script and uninstall it without user interaction.

After doing my evaluation, I later discovered that another project had independently decided on NSIS for many of the same reasons.

Tim Delaney