...is so boring.

Watching an internet installer download stuff before installing can be even more boring.

What are you installing?

Ah, that's what a good cup of coffee and a slice of cake is for.


I have had to write and test installers (InstallShield) those where dull days at work.

PFFFFFFFFFFFFFT! At least you had a tool to help you write installers.

Try writing an installer using just the MS system.

FurryGuy wrote:
Try writing an installer using just the MS system.

Did that before I talked them into getting InstallShield...to save time and hair.

Interestingly enough there is a Visual Studio Installer Projects add-on for 2017 and 2019 available in the VS marketplace:

https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=visualstudioclient.MicrosoftVisualStudio2017InstallerProjects

I have no need for creating an installer, getting this add-on would be a waste of space at this time.

What are you installing?

Heh, several months ago my hard drive began making like it was gonna die... (which, frustratingly, seems to happen to me every couple of years...) so I bought a new terabyte one and reinstalled everything...

...except MS won’t accept that I own (and have been legally using) a copy of Windows 7 Pro 64-bit for years. So I had to settle with an old copy of Win 7 32-bit, and have been just trying to save up a $170 for a copy of Windows 10 64-bit.

(But, money is going to getting my motorcycle out of the shop first... :O)

So I’ve been limping along with clang++ -std=c++14 (MinGW variety) for a while now, without my usual development environment setup. And I figured I’d fix that today.

SO... downloading and installing MSYS2, ConEmu + Clink, ICU, and Boost libraries. Over a crappy internet connection that keeps dropping me.

Pacman just finished updating my MSYS2 environment (while I ate lunch). Now to install ConEmu, which isn’t hard — configuring it to my likes takes longer than the actual install. Maybe I’ll try to get VS to reinstall after I’m done with everything...

[stuff about installers]

I am a huge fan of Inno Setup|http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php.

It is never a waste of time to make your software install and uninstall cleanly. Even if it doesn’t actually need to do anything but copy the executable to %ProgramFiles%\MyApp and create a shortcut in the start menu, it means your users will love you instead of hate you. (I find that the uninstaller typically has to do more work, even if only to clean the registry in addition to removing the executable files and directory.)

...Visual Studio...

VS is painfully slow for me, no matter what. Now that I’m running 32-bit I expect that to be worse.

Don’t get me wrong, it is a very nice environment, but there are things about it that just rub me wrong. (Mostly this is due to the editor.)

I tend to do everything from the command-line anyway, given the choice.


Heh, back to watching the grass grow.

Duthomhas wrote:
Heh, back to watching the grass grow.

Paint something, it would be more interesting watching it dry. :0)

See, the problem is that installers need you to pay attention, so you can Agree to something, or press Enter or click OK at random spots... and if you don’t stay on top of it, it just sits there and pretends that nothing is wrong...

several months ago my hard drive began making like it was gonna die...

Had that happen several times in the past, so now I backup my boot partition daily so installing software packages and the OS from scratch doesn't have to be done.

It is never a waste of time to make your software install and uninstall cleanly. Even if it doesn’t actually need to do anything but copy the executable to %ProgramFiles%\MyApp and create a shortcut in the start menu, it means your users will love you instead of hate you.

I'm the sole user for most of what I code, little test-beds for learning/improving some bit of code, so creating an installer can be more hassle than its worth.

If I ever did decide to distribute something, I'd do an installer. :)

Had that happen several times in the past, so now I backup my boot partition daily so installing software packages and the OS from scratch doesn't have to be done.

Yeah, five years ago I kept TWO drives: one a backup (duplicate) of the other.



Both died within a week of each other. I lost everything.
And someday I’ll have $500 to send one off to recovery...

Several years ago I had the boot partition die. Just after replacing it, restoring it from the latest daily backup, 5 minutes later my backup drive died. HARD. I heard and felt the read arm(s) slam into the platter and gouge it.

Ouch!

[edit]
MSVS: 9% complete

2017 or 2019?

When I installed 2017 I downloaded over night the entire setup. Did make the install not so mind-numbing slooooooooooooow.

2017. Yep. SlooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOoooooooooOOooooooow.

[edit]
14%

0_o

I installed MSVS 2017 Enterprise (loaded for bear) and it didn't take that long.

That’s probably because your computer isn’t a 10-year old AMD Sempron 130...

[edit]
Oh, and you probably have decent internet service... Mine is crap right now...

When I first installed 2017 the PC had an Intel Duo, don't remember anything else about the chip except it was slow.

Now the PC has a Core i5 2400. Still slow compared to newer CPUs, but it works for me.

My internet is 10 Mbps down and 1 Mbps up. Not sure if that is considered good, it's on the low end here.

The computer has a AMD E1-1500 APU (yes that is 1.48 GHz), just thought I'd see if it would run VS for odd test code for forums...It's a cheap laptop that I use to RDP onto my main machines when I don't want to sit in my study.