Re: What about official GTK+ installer for win32?

[Jernej =?utf-7?q?Simon+AQ0-i+AQ0-?= <jernej listsonly ena si>]

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 22:02:14 -0500, Michael Lawrence wrote:

> Given the current prevalence of GTK-based apps on Windows, it seems
> reasonable to just bundle the binaries with the application. However, as the
> number of GTK-based packages grows, the inherent inefficiency of monolithic
> installations will take its toll. Modular systems are simply easier to
> maintain. I don't want to have to release a new installer every time a
> bug-fix release of some dependency is released. The user should have the
> freedom to easily update everything at will.

The problem on Windows is, that a ton of badly written installers just dump
their DLLs to Windows\System32, which is always searched before any
directories in PATH, breaking your application when somebody dumps there an
old version of whatever common DLL you link to.

I've finally had enough trying to deal with this in my GIMP installer, so
from version 2.4 on, I'll simply include the latest GTK+- version in the
GIMP installer.

> I feel that a sophisticated package management system for Windows is a must
> for open-source to become mainstream on Windows. Of course, the construction
> and maintenance of such a system would be a monumental task and far beyond
> the scope of GTK+-.

Unless everything (and I mean everything) would switch to such a system,
you still have the possibility of a rogue application just dumping their
DLLs to System32, breaking everything else on the system.

-- 
< Jernej Simon+AQ0-i+AQ0- >< http://deepthought.ena.si/ >
< Contact address: >< jernej simoncic at isg si >