[Qgis-developer] Windows Installation broken - and cannot uninstall

[Jürgen E. Fischer]

Hi Alister,

On Wed, 08. Feb 2012 at 14:26:47 +0000, Alister  Hood wrote:
> > Use the standalone installer, is less risky to have something get wrong.

> 2. Is it really so necessary to dissuade people from using the OSGeo4W "Setup"?
> - It is much quicker and easier.  E.g. when a new version of QGIS is released
>   you only need to click through setup again to update.  You don't need to go
>   to the QGIS website, download a new installer (which will waste time and
>   bandwidth because it is bigger - especially since it includes GRASS, which
>   many people would never use), run the installer, and separately run the
>   uninstaller for the old version.  

The usual argument is that people are used to (<bias>huge and bloated</bias>)
standalone installers.  And those are easier for places with slow connectivity
(or off-net).  I'm not sure about that either - especially when updates are
considered.

I don't recommend the standalone installer either - I just make it ;)
But that's done from the osgeo4w packages anyway.


> - I'm not convinced the OSGeo4W installer is very risky.  Are people having
>   problems with it without doing an "advanced install" and choosing weird
>   things

Me neither - and yes, I think that installing stuff, that the (documented) need
of third party dependencies was the trouble maker again.


> - always install "setup" - make it a dependency of every other package.
> - change the label of "setup" in the start menu to something which makes it
>   really obvious that this is how you add/remove/upgrade/rollback packages.

Sounds good and easy.


> - Explain that if you want to remove _everything_ you can just delete the
>   main OSGeo4W folder.

> I guess it would be _possible_ to make the osgeo4w installer automatically
> install "setup", and put something in the Windows "add remove programs" to
> launch it, but it would require more work...

That's probably not that difficult - just needs some googling - and some time
;)


Jürgen

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