[Python-Dev] Python Launcher for Windows (PEP 397) needs testing!

[Paul Moore]

On 7 July 2011 15:24, Vinay Sajip <vinay_sajip at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Hi Paul,
>
> Thanks for trying it out. If it installs successfully, nothing will appear to
> happen, Unix-style :-)
>
> There should be files installed in c:\Program Files\Python Launcher:
>
> py.exe, pyw.exe, py.ini
>
> and there should be registry entries in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Python.File,
> Python.NoConFile and Python.CompiledFile which point to those installed files.
>
> Can you confirm if this is the case?

Ah, yes. This is what has happened.

In that case, some points:

1. A "silent by default" installer like this is not very usual in the
Windows world, I'd have expected a confirmation dialog at least. For
silent installs, msiexec /silent is available.

2. I thought the idea from the PEP was to put py.exe/pyw.exe into a
"system" location which is already on the PATH (likely
windows\system32, or whatever the 64-bit equivalent is). That way, py
or py -3 and similar can be used to launch the interactive
interpreter.

3. Given that you're not installing in system32, you should add the
install dir to PATH (and remove it on uninstall :-)) That's definitely
a second-best option, though, so I'd rather you didn't, but installed
in system32 instead :-)

4. If you embed both of the py.ico and pyc.ico files into the launcher
exes, you wouldn't need to have them as separate files (I see py.ico
is embedded already) and so the footprint becomes 2 exes and an ini
file. That might be a bit more palatable for people who are
uncomfortable with installing into somewhere like system32.

Otherwise it looks great.

> P.S. I didn't copy the list, as if there is some problem which requires going
> back and forth a bit, it would be OT for the list.

Agreed. I've added the list back in as the above is really design
feedback, and so would benefit from comments from the list.

Paul.