[gdal-dev] GDAL windows installers available

[Tamas Szekeres]

Folks,

Upon the inspiration on the recent conversation in this topic I've put some
efforts to automate the creation of a generic GDAL installer derived from
the distributions available at http://vbkto.dyndns.org/sdk/.

Currently the following options are available from this site to install and
use GDAL:

1. Download the .zip package extract it in some location and run
SDKShell.bat to run the commandline tools (this is the former approach)
2. Use the core msi installer to install GDAL and use the installed shortcut
to run the command line tools.  Python users should install the python
bindings installer as well.

In order to have the bindings work the location of the core files should be
added to the PATH manually (this requirement will probably be removed in the
future when the automatic loader approach is implemented at the bindings)

The core installer places an entry in the registry (currently in HKCU)
containing the install location which will allow the loader to find the
required components.

This task is not yet complete, the following issues are to be handled or
reviewed in some way.

1. Side by side installation of the multiple versions is not yet supported.
2. Must review the license agreement (currently taken from the GDAL site)
3. Must review the product name
4. Must review the installer design
5. Must review the selectable features
6. Loader approach to be implemented for the bindings
7. Versioning rules should be clarified (should synchronize the registry
entries among the versions)
8. Further fixes


The core installer is provided as a single wix
<http://wix.sourceforge.net/>project file the build process is
executed by the command line apps
(candle.exe and light.exe). I will make the whole approach public as part to
the -dev packages at http://vbkto.dyndns.org/sdk/. By using this addition
one can easily rebuild the installer after creating a customized GDAL build.

The wix project file could also be included in GDAL source tree and a new
target could be added in the gdal makefile for creating the installer (the
CRT redistributable merge modules and the dependent dlls must be available
during the build). Having the locations of the OSGeo4w files in place, this
approach could easily generate the same installer for the OSGeo4w bundle.


Any testing efforts / comments / wishes are graciously accepted.

Best regards,

Tamas
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