New Windows Installers for Testing

[Richard Kimberly Heck]

On 6/9/20 1:33 PM, Enrico Forestieri wrote:
> On Tue, Jun 09, 2020 at 07:15:22PM +0200, Yu Jin wrote:
>> Am Di., 9. Juni 2020 um 17:55 Uhr schrieb Enrico Forestieri <forenr at lyx.org
>>> :
>>> On Tue, Jun 09, 2020 at 03:29:29PM +0200, Yu Jin wrote:
>>>> Am Di., 9. Juni 2020 um 14:21 Uhr schrieb Jean-Marc Lasgouttes <
>>>> lasgouttes at lyx.org>:
>>>>> OTOH, for texlive, running configure.py is just wasting time if I
>>>>> understand correctly. And since a lot of packages are checked in
>>>>> configure.py just for this, we are talking about a lot of time, here.
>>>>>
>>>> I see, but don't we then save this time when LyX is started for the first
>>>> time? Otherwise configure.py would run there.
>>> I don't think so, because configure.py is run for the admin user at
>>> installation time. It will be run again when lyx is started by another
>>> user.
>>>
>> Agree for this case.
>>
>>
>>> Then, there is also the issue that, before running configure.py, the
>>> installer subverts the MikTeX settings by allowing to always install
>>> packages on the fly, irrespective of the choice made through the
>>> MikTeX console.
>>>
>> Are you sure? I have neither experienced this nor found anything related to
>> this in the NSIS code. Maybe this was the case with the bundle installer?
> Yes, I am sure. I have always been scared by that and didn't use the
> installer for years. I tried it again when it was built by Riki, but
> it was still like that. After using the installer I spent almost an hour
> finding and uninstalling a lot of packages I never use.

Sorry about that! I tried to remove this but apparently failed.

> However, that was with lyx 2.3.3 and I never used it again thereafter,
> so maybe it is not like that anymore.

No such changes since...

Ultimately, we just need to get this right in the new installer. So we
need to decide what our policy should be going forward. As far as I can
understand, the only reason to run configure.py at install time is that
we might be installing as admin (with (MiK?)TeX installed as admin) and,
if so, running it at first open will not have the same effect as running
it at install (since we will not be able to install new packages). This
does seem like a reasonable use case. But presumably, we can detect
that? I.e., we need not run configure.py unless we are in that case?

As JMarc more or less remarked, though, Uwe always insisted that the
Windows installer should install every package that any 'official' LyX
document class or module might need. That has always seemed wrong to
many of us, since most users will only need a fraction of these
packages. Maybe there is a case (which Uwe also made) that we should
install the packages needed to compile the manuals. But even that is not
obvious. So the whole "Run configure.py as a way to trick (MiK?)TeX into
installing a bunch of packages" doesn't seem all that convincing to me.

Riki

PS Do any of the recent changes to the installer require a rebuild of
the 'official' Windows installer?