Win32 Installer only offers single version of python

[Steve Barnes]

On multi-python version istallations the windows installer only offers python 2.7, (not 2.6 as is also installed, and default, on my system)

pyexiv2 0.3.2-setup.exe used.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Thanks for the report Steve.

I’m not very familiar with the typical use cases of Python on Windows. How frequent is such a scenario (multiple versions of Python installed on the same Windows system)?

I can see two possibilities to address this issue:

 (a) Generate two installers, one for Python 2.6 and one for Python 2.7
 (b) Generate an installer that embeds both versions

(b) would definitely require more work, but it may be more convenient for users if there’s a real use case.

[Steve Barnes (gadgetsteve-0)]

On 25/10/2011 7:38 AM, Olivier Tilloy wrote:
> Thanks for the report Steve.
>
> I’m not very familiar with the typical use cases of Python on Windows.
> How frequent is such a scenario (multiple versions of Python installed
> on the same Windows system)?
>
> I can see two possibilities to address this issue:
>
> (a) Generate two installers, one for Python 2.6 and one for Python 2.7
> (b) Generate an installer that embeds both versions
>
> (b) would definitely require more work, but it may be more convenient
> for users if there’s a real use case.
>
> ** Changed in: pyexiv2
> Status: New => Confirmed
>
A number of users/developers of python have multiple versions installed
side by side, typically c:\pythonXY for python version X.Y this is
usually the case where you are a) maintaining a legacy system written in
an older version of python, (in my case 2.5), working on a current
system in a later version of python that has the major libraries
available, (2.6), preparing to port to the next major release, (3.2), etc.

The usual pattern for installers that support more than one version of
python is to check the windows registry and/or the normal install paths
and then to prompt the user at each run of the installer which python
they wish to install for.

Seems a shame to have fixed a bug that prevented pyexiv2 running on
python2.6 and have it still only offer to install itself to python 2.7
as happened in my case.

Gadget/Steve

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Right, thanks for the explanation.

Regarding bug #880659, I was mostly concerned that it would affect linux users, as there is a number of stable versions of distributions that don’t ship with the latest version of Python. I didn’t think it would be a concern for windows users at all (I was assuming that windows users always run the most up-to-date version).

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Fixing this in a clean way will require modifications to the cross-compilation script as well as the windows installer script to handle correctly multiple versions (as of today those would be 2.6 and 2.7).