pretty windows installer for py scripts

[Steve Christensen]

On 2005-09-08, Adriaan Renting <renting at astron.nl> wrote:
> The elegant way to do installs on Windows would be by creating an MSI.
> Microsoft provides (IIRC) a simple tool to create those (Orca), that's
> free. Without the Installshield or Wise tools I think it would take
> quite some effort though, because you need to understand all the
> details of how msi tables work. You might be able to get the idea by
> using orca to look at other msi installs, and figure out how they do
> things.  MSI itself isn't very difficult, but it'll take some time to
> understand it. If you do use it, do not foget to define uninstall
> actions.

Avoid Orca like the plague. It's useful to view MSI archives... but
beyond that it'll just get you into trouble. 

If you want MSI/Windows Installer, try the WiX project
<http://sourceforge.net/projects/wix> -- it's main developer is from MS,
and it's licensed under CPL. You'll need to create .xml input files that
describe your project, and the WiX tools compile them into the MSI
database.

Or, you could also try tweaking the Python 2.4 install stuff. It uses a
wrapper around the Windows Installer API to create the .msi file. You
could tweak that to create your own MSI files... but, it might be
better in the long-run to use WiX.

To use WiX 'properly' you will need to understand Windows Installer,
which is no small task. (I haven't looked at it since mid-2004... maybe
things have changed). If you just want something quick and easy, try
using NSIS or InnoSetup.


-Steve