[Tutor] Getting Started

[eryksun]

On Thu, Dec 19, 2013 at 8:46 AM, Oscar Benjamin
<oscar.j.benjamin at gmail.com> wrote:
> So what then is the purpose of running "cmd /c some_console_app"? For
> example the git-bash launcher on my desktop runs
> C:\WINDOWS\system32\cmd.exe /c ""Q:\TOOLS\Git\bin\sh.exe" --login -i"

I guess you're using 32-bit XP.

Looking at the history of the Inno Setup config, I see that originally
it used system32\cmd.exe /c only for "Git Bash Here", to change the
drive:\directory with pushd before running sh.exe. On 64-bit NT 5 (XP)
this had problems using 64-bit cmd.exe to start 32-bit sh.exe. A patch
was accepted to use {syswow64}\cmd.exe (on 64-bit Windows that's the
32-bit SysWoW64 folder; on 32-bit Windows it's just system32). That
patch also switched to using cmd.exe for the desktop shortcut. I don't
know why.

Currently "Git Bash Here" is handled by the script "Git Bash.vbs".
Also, for NT 6+ it configures the shortcut and .sh extension
association to run sh.exe directly, instead of via cmd /c.

https://github.com/msysgit/msysgit/blob/Git-1.8.4-preview20130916/share/WinGit/install.iss

> I think in the future it will be good to advise Windows users to use
> the py.exe launcher. Although this wasn't the initial reason for
> adding the launcher it usually solves the issue of needing to set PATH
> before being able to locate "python" in the shell.

py.exe is installed to %windir% for an all-users installation.
Otherwise I think it's placed alongside python.exe. Anyway, the 3.3
installer has an option to update the PATH.