[Distutils] msi installer for 64-bit Windows?

[John Machin]

Hello,

I'm trying to figure out how to produce a Windows installer for
pure-Python packages such that it will "just run" on a 64-bit Windows
platform.

I'm running a 32-bit Windows (Windows 7 Pro), and the msi produced by

    python setup.py bdist_msi

works just fine on Win 7 Pro. I don't have a win64 platform to test on.

The distutils docs for Python 2.7.1 say: ""In most cases, the bdist_msi
installer is a better choice than the bdist_wininst installer, because it
provides better support for Win64 platforms, allows administrators to
perform non-interactive installations, and allows installation through
group policies.""" but give no more detail.

Running

    python setup.py bdist_msi --help

produces only one item of interest:

Options for 'bdist_msi' command:
  --plat-name (-p)           platform name to embed in generated filenames
(default: win32)

Does the win32 version work on win64? Is the purpose of changing the name
solely in order that win64 users are not deterred from using it because
the name includes "win32"?

Cheers,
John