[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

MinGW

Python for Windows Extensions

mfc71.dll (just download, don't install)

The py2exe distutils extension

Inno Setup

ISTool

add_path (you need only add_path.exe in the zip file)

And, of course, Mercurial itself

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.

Create a file named setup.cfg in the root of the repository with the following contents:

[build]
compiler=mingw32

In a shell, build a standalone copy of the hg.exe program:

python setup.py py2exe -b 1

Copy mfc71.dll and add_path.exe into the dist directory that just got created.

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.