I am not at all a windows person but I have used <a href="http://www.dennisbareis.com/makemsi.htm">http://www.dennisbareis.com/makemsi.htm</a> in the past to automate editing and tweaking some MSI files for testing. It can also be used to generate new ones. It looks like it would still require something to generate its own input description. Regardless, just wanted to offer the link so people are aware that it exists. I have no opinion on what actually gets used so long as its automated.<br>
<br>-gps<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 7:24 AM, "Martin v. Löwis" <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:martin@v.loewis.de">martin@v.loewis.de</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="Ih2E3d">Giovanni Bajo wrote:<br>
> On gio, 2008-11-27 at 00:29 +0100, "Martin v. Löwis" wrote:<br>
>>> So, deducing from your reply, this "merge module" is a thing that allows<br>
>>> to install the CRT (and other shared components)?<br>
>> Correct. More generally, a merge module is a something like an MSI<br>
>> library (.a). It includes a set of files and snippets of an installation<br>
>> procedure for them.<br>
><br>
> OK. One question: why CRT doesn't get installed as regular files near to<br>
> the python executable? That's how I usually ship it, but maybe Python<br>
> has some special need.<br>
<br>
</div>When installing "for all users", pythonxy.dll goes into system32. This,<br>
in turn, requires the CRT to be installed globally (which meant into<br>
system32 for VS6 and VS7.1, but means using SxS for VS 2008). It's<br>
necessary to install it into system32 so that PythonCOM can find it<br>
(alternatively, we could now also making it an SxS assembly).<br>
<br>
VS2008 adds another twist: assembly manifests. As a consequence of this<br>
technology, if Python 2.6 is installed "just for me" on Windows Vista<br>
(i.e. the CRT is next to the executable), it just won't work, because<br>
the extension modules (.pyd) can't find the CRT.<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
> I proposed an alternatives because I read you saying: "The tricky part<br>
> really is when it breaks (which it does more often than<br>
> not), in which case you need to understand msi.py, for which you need to<br>
> understand MSI". Which means that maybe everybody *has tools* to build<br>
> an installer today, but only a few people have the required knowledge to<br>
> really do releases on Windows.<br>
><br>
> So I believe that switching to an alternative that doesn't require full<br>
> understanding of MSI and msi.py would probably low the barrier and allow<br>
> more people to help you out.<br>
<br>
</div>I remain skeptical. You replace the need to learn MSI with the need to<br>
learn this tool, and not only to work around the limitations of MSI, but<br>
also around the limitations of the tool you have chosen.<br>
<div class="Ih2E3d"><br>
Regards,<br>
Martin<br>
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</blockquote></div><br>