[Python-Dev] wininst-*.exe files in Lib/distutils/command

[VanL]

Primarily for non-windows platforms, but I also think for Windows users
without any compilers or similar tools installed. There is also some
discussion of removing some of the older toolchain-specific versions
(leaving only -14), but that is a subject for another day.

Also I am not sure that bug report applies to 3.5/3.6/3.7.

Thanks,
Van


On Thu, Oct 18, 2018 at 11:26 AM Petr Viktorin <encukou at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 10/18/18 4:40 PM, Zachary Ware wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 18, 2018 at 9:09 AM VanL <van.lindberg at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Hi all,
> >>
> >> I am looking into an issue associated with the wininst-*.exe files in
> the distutils/command subdirectory. It looks like these are the executable
> stubs used to create self-extracting zips for installation - but I am not
> 100% sure. It also looks like they include the calls to standard Windows
> functions to display the installer window.
> >>
> >> I have a couple questions I need help with:
> >> 1) Am I correct about the function, and if not, what are they?
> >
> > You are correct.  IIUC, they are checked in to allow creating those
> > installers from non-Windows platforms.
>
> Is that the only reason for them?
> At least on Linux, bdist_wininst does not work since at least Python
> 3.2, as it tries to use a Windows-only encoding internally.
> https://bugs.python.org/issue10945
>
> If they're only there for non-Windows platforms, they're useless.
>
> >> 2) Where did these come from, and where is their source code?
> >
> > Source can be found here:
> > https://github.com/python/cpython/tree/master/PC/bdist_wininst
> >
> > The individual checked-in .exe files were each originally built by
> > whoever updated the Windows toolchain to a new version of MSVC
> > (Christian Heimes, Brian Curtin, or Steve Dower; though the oldest
> > ones were added by Thomas Heller, presumably using whatever the
> > current toolchain(s) was (were) at the time).  A few of them have been
> > rebuilt after bug fixes in the source since they were added, mostly by
> > the same people, though I also see Mark Hammond and Raymond Hettinger
> > in the history (and Georg Brandl via svnmerge).  I notice that there
> > are a few very minor code cleanups (the three latest commits here
> >
> https://github.com/python/cpython/commits/master/PC/bdist_wininst/install.c
> )
> > that have not made it into a rebuilt exe yet.
> >
> > FTR, we really ought to remove all but the 14.0 version from the
> > master branch.  We don't support building Python with any toolchain
> > older than 14.0 anymore, and the older toolchains are nigh impossible
> > to find anymore anyway.
>
>
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