[Note: this page has been adapted from contrib/win32/win32-build.txt found in Mercurial's source tree]
The standalone Windows installer for Mercurial is built in a somewhat jury-rigged fashion.
Prerequisites
It has the following prerequisites, at least as I build it:
Python for Windows (2.4 or newer)
MinGW
Python for Windows Extensions
mfc71.dll (just download, don't install; not needed for Python 2.6)
Visual C++ 2008 redistributable package (needed for Python 2.6)
The py2exe distutils extension
Inno Setup
ISTool (optional)
add_path (you need only add_path.exe in the zip file)
And, of course, Mercurial itself
To build the html help files you need also:
asciidoc
[Note: to configure it you have to adjust your path so the asciidoc.py file is found (I use a link to it from /bin in an msys install), and you have to change the CONF_DIR hardcoded into that file so the backend and help files are found (in my case it's changed to "C:/winp/msys/1.0/etc/asciidoc")]
Additional Packages
It is extremely useful to have the Subversion Python bindings (see http://subversion.tigris.org/project_packages.html) installed when building the installer. If you do this, then the bindings will be picked up and included in the installer, which means that the convert extension can work with Subversion repositories.
If you have pygments (http://pygments.org/) installed, this will allow use of the highlight extension.
The pyOpenSSL package (http://pyopenssl.sourceforge.net/) will enable SSL support in hg serve.
Building Installer
Once you have all this installed and built, clone a copy of the Mercurial repository you want to package, and name the repo C:\hg\hg-release.
Open a command prompt window on C:\hg\hg-release, then build a standalone copy of the hg.exe program:
python setup.py build -c mingw32 python setup.py py2exe -b 1
Note: the combined command "python setup.py build -c mingw32 py2exe -b 1" that had been suggested in the past doesn't work correctly, as it doesn't include the extensions in the mercurial subdirectory and separate commands should be used as indicated.
Alternatively, you can create a file named setup.cfg in the root of the repository (C:\hg\hg-release) with the following contents:
[build] compiler=mingw32
which would allow you to skip the first build step and just run:
python setup.py py2exe -b 1
Copy add_path.exe into the dist directory that just got created.
If you are using Python up to version 2.5.4, copy mfc71.dll into the dist directory that just got created.
If you are using Python 2.6 or later, after installing the Visual C++ 2008 redistributable package copy into the dist directory that just got created the following files:
From the directory starting with Windows/WinSxS/x86_Microsoft.VC90.CRT_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.21022.8 the files named: msvcm90.dll, msvcp90.dll and msvcr90.dll.
From the directory starting with Windows/WinSxS/x86_Microsoft.VC90.MFC_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.21022.8 the files named: mfc90.dll, mfc90u.dll, mfcm90.dll and mfcm90u.dll.
From the directory named Windows/WinSxS/Manifests, the manifest file starting with x86_Microsoft.VC90.CRT_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.21022.8 (rename it to Microsoft.VC90.CRT.manifest) and the manifest file starting with x86_Microsoft.VC90.MFC_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_9.0.21022.8 (rename .it to Microsoft.VC90.MFC.manifest)
To build the docs you:
cd doc make html cd ..
If Inno Setup is in your path you can run:
iscc contrib\win32\mercurial.iss
Or you can run ISTool, and open the C:\hg\hg-release\contrib\win32\mercurial.iss file. In ISTool, type Ctrl-F9 to compile the installer file.
The actual installer will be in the C:\hg\hg-release\Output directory.
To automate the steps above you may want to create a batchfile based on the following:
echo [build] > setup.cfg echo compiler=mingw32 >> setup.cfg python setup.py py2exe -b 1 iscc contrib\win32\mercurial.iss
and run it from the root of the hg repository (C:\hg\hg-release).