[python-win32] Creating an installer for a COM server.

[pavlos@gaaros.com]

Hello everyone

We are trying to create an installer that installs and registers 4-5 COM 
servers on win2000/nt machines. We would like to ship a single installer 
that contains a custom python distro plus all the required external modules 
including win32com support. The scale/requirements of our app do not fit 
well the already available ones like the Installer app by Gordon McMillan 
therefore we need to create the appropriate path/configuration modifications
to both python and to win32all so that the COM servers will be registered 
appropriately. Additionally we do not want to modify or affect in any way 
existing python installations on the client machines. So far we have figured 
out the following: 

 * python sets up its sys.path attribute from a number of sources. One is
   a hardcoded registry key. This we can modify to point to an appropriate
   subkey under our application's root key. As far as we can tell the
   following registry keys need to be set appropriately: 

   SOFTWARE\<OurApp>\Python\PythonCore\2.2\InstallPath
   SOFTWARE\<OurApp>\Python\PythonCore\2.2\InstallPath\InstallGroup
   SOFTWARE\<OurApp>\Python\PythonCore\2.2\Modules\pythoncom
   SOFTWARE\<OurApp>\Python\PythonCore\2.2\Modules\pywintypes
   SOFTWARE\<OurApp>\Python\PythonCore\2.2\PythonPath
   SOFTWARE\<OurApp>\Python\PythonCore\2.2\PythonPath\win32com
   SOFTWARE\<OurApp>\Python\PythonCore\2.2\PythonPath\win32 

 * If the shiped python is modified to look in the above registry keys
   the COM servers work fine as long as pywintypes22.dll and
   pythoncom22.dll exist in the winnt/system32/ dir. We do not want to
   overwrite existing python installations in any way (in case users
   are running modified versions of pythoncom22.dll ...). However if we
   modify the above registry keys for pythoncom22.dll and pywintypes22.dll
   paths, then the COM servers no longer work. A few *.py files in
   the win32all distro contain hardwired references to registry keys.
   Modifying those does not fix the problem. 


Any ideas/pointers? 

Thanks in advance 

=====
Pavlos Christoforou