[Octave-bug-tracker] [bug #45911] Improvements for installation on Windows

[Philip Nienhuis]

Update of bug #45911 (project octave):

                Priority:              5 - Normal => 4                      
              Item Group:    Installation Failure => Feature Request        
                  Status:                    None => Confirmed              
                 Summary: Installation on Windows => Improvements for
installation on Windows

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Follow-up Comment #1:

In addition to your wishes, here's some more:
- Being able to select the Start Menu subdir would be nice too. Presently  the
Octave shortcuts are dumped into the "main" Start Menu folder.  I had a go at
this some weeks back but it isn't quite as easy as I hoped it would be.
- Another Windows-specific issue that should be solved is bug #40444. It is
the same category as your "Program Files" wish and I do not consider it a bug;
Octave doesn't conform to Windows conventions but otherwise works fine.


Anyway you've presented a long list here. Good that you finally registered
these long-known issues for reference.

The main problem to get them solved is that there aren't so many
Octave-on-Windows developers - just three or four "part time" ones and
maybe/probably I'm much too optimistic here.
Priority lies with maintaining Octave's core functionality on Windows; bells
and whistles like nice installers have less appeal for most devs. Most of us
here use an OS (Linux) that has all these issues solved (or avoided) in the
distros by good and streamlined package managers.


As to some of your items:

_installing to %Program Files% directory_
"C:\Octave" isn't a fixed unmutable setting but rather a suggestion, one can
easily adapt the installation directory during installation. AFAIK spaces in
the installation directory path names are catched for good reason.

_32bit/64bit:_
When trying to building an unstripped (of debug symbols)  installer lately I
hit the NSIS 2 GB limit. That will surely happen as well when a combined 32/64
bit installer is built. FYI, a recent 64b development build for Windows incl.
OF packages (stripped and all) already takes 1.86 GB disk space when
installed.
I'm afraid this wish will lead to a much more complicated build-up of the
installer. Maybe something like a stub that downloads the rest from the
Internet could be a solution.

_Spaces (and other characters) in path names:_
I suppose large parts of Octave's I/O internals depend on the underlying
system libs supplied by the MinGW project. If so, Octave can do only so much
until this is fixed upstream.
Note that it is mostly when invoking binary modules that spaces in path names
are an issue. I/O from/to files with spaces in the (path) names works
perfectly AFAIK.

_check boxes for packages_
That was once implemented in the ancient 3.2.4 binary installer - shouldn't be
hard to re-implement.

_remove, repair, adjust_
Isn't that supported only for .msi type installers? If so that's not going to
make it with Octave as it is a proprietary system.


Changing Item group to "Feature request" as most of the mentioned issues do
not obstruct Octave's functionality and one issue (spaces) looks to be an
upstream issue;
Priority just a little lower;
Status => "Confirmed"
Title adapted

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