[Python-Dev] PEP 397 (Python launcher for Windows) reference implementation (original) (raw)

Paul Moore p.f.moore at gmail.com
Tue Jul 5 10🔞56 CEST 2011

On 5 July 2011 03:26, Nick Coghlan <ncoghlan at gmail.com> wrote:

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Mark Hammond <skippy.hammond at gmail.com> wrote:

If the launcher is such that we can unconditionally recommend its use, IMO we should just install it with Python.  I'll go with the consensus though... I've installed other WIndows apps that create multiple add/remove programs entries from a single installer. I believe people are suggesting a similar thing here (i.e. have the launcher installed automatically when installing python, but create a separate add/remove entry so uninstallation leaves it behind unless removal is explicitly requested)

That's certainly what I was meaning.

I'm 100% in favour of Python 3.3 and later containing the installer as part of the core Python installer. One download, one install. (And two add/remove entries).

I'd like to see a standalone installer for users of Python 2.7/3.2 and earlier. It's too useful a feature to not make it available for people who haven't installed 3.3 yet. And I'd prefer it if that standalone installer was hosted on python.org for visibility, rather than on PyPI.

I'm not enough of an MSI expert to know if this can be implemented by having a standalone MSI, and then "embedding" it in the Python 3.3 MSI. That was what I'd thought of, but Vinay's later email suggests it might not be advisable:

AFAICT, although you can embed an MSI inside another one, the practice of concurrent/nested installations is strongly discouraged by Microsoft - see http://goo.gl/FJx1S (Rule 20). [...] So you could package Python and the launcher as separate MSIs (this would make sense so that you could restore associations to the launcher just by repairing its installation), but since nested MSIs are a no-no, that means installing via a bootstrapping .exe. This is a bigger change to our Windows packaging than some people might be comfortable with ...

Paul.

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