BuildingWindowsInstaller

[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

• http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.4.3/python-2.4.3.msi

MinGW

• http://www.mingw.org/

Python for Windows Extensions

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/pywin32/

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

• http://starship.python.net/crew/mhammond/win32/

The py2exe distutils extension

• http://sourceforge.net/projects/py2exe/

Inno Setup

• http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php

ISTool (optional)

• http://www.istool.org/default.aspx/

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

• http://www.barisione.org/apps.html#add_path

And, of course, Mercurial itself

• http://www.selenic.com/hg/

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 previously suggested combined command of "python setup.py build -c mingw32 py2exe -b 1" doesn't work correctly anymore as it doesn't include the extensions in the mercurial subdirectory.

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 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.

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).