Windows Installer: Difference between revisions

102 bytes added ,  14 October 2019
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→‎Testing using virtual machines: Add more path templates.
m (→‎Testing using virtual machines: Add more path templates.)
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Microsoft provides several virtual machine (e.g. VirtualBox) disk images of MS Windows for 90 days of testing https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/. While primarily meant for testing the MS-Edge browser, the license (given on that page) for these images does not limit the use of these images to just MS-Edge. So it is perfectly possible to also test GNU Octave.
Microsoft provides several virtual machine (e.g. VirtualBox) disk images of MS Windows for 90 days of testing https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/. While primarily meant for testing the MS-Edge browser, the license (given on that page) for these images does not limit the use of these images to just MS-Edge. So it is perfectly possible to also test GNU Octave.


The key idea is to create a shared folder inside the virtual machine to the mxe-octave build directory. It is advised to make it read-only.  Either install (or unpack) Octave into Windows 10, or create a shortcut to octave.vbs in the dist/octave subdirectory on the Linux side.
The key idea is to create a shared folder inside the virtual machine to the mxe-octave build directory. It is advised to make it read-only.  Either install (or unpack) Octave into Windows 10, or create a shortcut to {{Path|octave.vbs}} in the {{Path|<mxe-octave build dir>/dist/octave}} subdirectory on the Linux side.


Some advantages:
Some advantages:
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Hints:
Hints:
* When adapting {{Path|mxe-octave/binary-dist-rules.mk}} to have a consistent name for the dist/octave subdirectory (i.e., without time/date/bitwidth suffixes) so that in MS Windows the shortcut doesn't need adaptation after each cross-build action. Maybe it is better if {{Path|mxe-octave/binary-dist-rules.mk}} has a rule to create a symlink "dist/octave/" pointing to the latest cross-build.
* When adapting {{Path|mxe-octave/binary-dist-rules.mk}} to have a consistent name for the {{Path|<mxe-octave build dir>/dist/octave}} subdirectory (i.e., without time/date/bitwidth suffixes) so that in MS Windows the shortcut doesn't need adaptation after each cross-build action. Maybe it is better if {{Path|mxe-octave/binary-dist-rules.mk}} has a rule to create a symlink {{Path|<mxe-octave build dir>/dist/octave}} pointing to the latest cross-build.
* The image expires after 90 days. But if you make a VirtualBox snapshot it will last longer, and you don't need to uninstall Octave each time before installing a new build.
* The image expires after 90 days. But if you make a VirtualBox snapshot it will last longer, and you don't need to uninstall Octave each time before installing a new build.