Re: how to install just client libraries on windows?

On 2/12/2009 7:10 AM, raf wrote:

> <aside>
> not only that, but on a windows host on which i had
> installed the 8.3 client and server software, when i
> uninstalled the server leaving the client software behind,
> the client software was no longer complete and couldn't
> be used (i.e. python's pygresql module failed to load
> even though libpq.dll was there because something else
> wasn't there). i had to rsync files over from another
> host that had only had the client software installed.
> </aside>

Ouch. The installer is not not properly tracking the sharing of DLLs
between components.

>> The easiest way to just get libpq and the
>> supporting libraries would be from the tarball distros:
>> http://www.enterprisedb.com/products/pgbindownload.do
>>
>> Just extract, and grab the DLLs.
>
> thanks but no thanks. i can see where this might lead.
> i don't know what files are needed and what ones aren't.
> it probably won't just be the dlls that are needed and
> i'll waste half a day experimenting to see what's really
> needed. plus it only helps me. it doesn't help anyone else.

Dependency Walker (depends.exe) from dependencywalker.com takes care of
that. It really is trivial. However, I agree that it's a cludgy way to
do things that shouldn't be necessary.

It'd be good to see a simple MSI installer of the client libs. The Pg
server installer could always just bundle the client lib installer, but
permit it to be distributed separately as well. That'd save on install
complexity and size as well.

EnterpriseDB are currently handling the creation of the binary
installers for PostgreSQL. I've been talking with them about some other
installer issues (where the interferes with system libraries on Linux)
too, so hopefully they'll be doing some work on their installers soon.
Maybe they can look at splitting the client library installer into a
separate package too.

Dave: Are there sources available for the EnterpriseDB
installer/packaging system? I'd like to get into the linux library path
patcking problem myself, since nobody at EDB seemed to be interested in
the issues when discussed on -general last week.

--
Craig Ringer