Re: Windows installation notes

> Not sure if this is the right place, but win32-hackers seems
> to be dead.

Yeah, it's been discontinued.

> I recently had a chance to install PostgreSQL on Windows, and
> wanted to share my comments on the experience in the hope of
> making things better.
> Overall I was very impressed - this is a very nice installer.
> I am not a Windows user: the last time I used it for anything
> serious was Win98, so forgive any unwise assumptions. This
> was using WinXP on a modern laptop.
> My comments are in rough chronological order only, so serious
> concerns are mixed with pithy observations.

Wow, that's a lot of comments. But thanks!

> My first big problem was getting the thing to run. I
> downloaded the installer (and had problems doing that, but
> that's not something relevant to this thread). Once the zip
> file was downloaded I double clicked on it and Windows opened
> a folder. I read the README.TXT, then double clicked on the
> .msi file. It asked for a language, but when I made my
> choice, it insisted the file could not be found. After much
> digging, I realized that Windows had not actually unzipped
> the file completely, or at least not made it available in a
> way the installer could find. I had to right click on the zip
> file and choose "extract", go to the folder created, and then
> the msi file worked. At the least, something should go in the
> README about this. Ideally, the installer should figure out
> what is happenning too and either find a way to read the
> file, or give a better message.

I'll add tihs to the README, and also to the FAQ.
Note that the error message comes from Windows Installer and not from
our own code, so we can't really change it.

> The first text screen that popped up after that was a little
> small considering all of the text inside of it - can it be
> made larger, or at least made resizeable?

It's the default size for a Windows Installer installation program. We
could make it larger, but then we'd not look very normal any more.
AFAIK, it can't be made changeable.

>It was good to see
> the FAQ mentioned there, but it should show up earlier, e.g.
> the README as well. Also, I could not click on the URL, nor
> could I copy and paste it, despite it being "blue colored" as a link.

Yup, that's a limitation in the RTF control in Windows Installer.
I'll add it to the README.

> The URL was:
> http://pginstaller.projects.postgresql.org/faq/FAQ_windows.html
>
> Especially in light of the fact that I had to manually copy
> this into a browser window, a shorter url would be nice, even
> if it just redirects to the above. Perhaps something like:
>
> http://postgresql.org/windows.html

It's also available as
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faqs.FAQ_windows.html

Not sure if it's all tha tmuch better.

> "Development files" was too sparse, it should tell what it is
> for - would people think they need this if they want to
> develop an application? I presume it is for developing
> PostgreSQL itself, however.

Different for differnet parts, actually. And they are explained once you
click them. The main things that hides here are libpq, ecpg and pgxs.

> The "Data" directory is not very intuitive, as the only other
> place where a directory should be specified, it should stand out more.

It's pretty much the standard windows installer way of specifying paths.

> If you don't give a password, the randomly generated one is
> ghastly. Not sure if this is a Windows thing or what, but it
> was definitely a strong password. Impossible to remember, and
> very difficult to write down and enter.

To write it down, just use copy-and-paste (hit Ctrl-C on the dialog box,
paste it into notepad or whatever). There's really no reason to use a
non-ghastly password for something where you're only going to actually
type in the password once per year when you do a major version upgrade.
Might be a good idea to add a message about writing it down, though :-)

> More explanations would help throughout the process, such as
> explaining exactly what "Initialize database cluster" means,
> and what a port number is.

Any specifics on how to do that would certainly be appreciated :-)

> Towards the end, I got a data directory error, and the
> message that I must initialize it manually by using
> initdb.exe. This was because I was using a
> FAT32 partition. Should this not have come up much earlier?
> For example, when I chose the partition?

We can't put it up earlier, because it's only relevant if you actually
do an initdb. We'll show it as soon as we've found that out.

> There was only one procedural language available, and no
> explanation why the others were greyed out or how to get them.

This is explained in the installation instructions on
http://pginstaller.projects.postgresql.org/

> My next problem was directory permissions. After I got
> through the whole process, initdb failed due to the postgres
> user not having permissions on a directory. Again, it would
> be most helpful if this could be checked earlier.

Yeah,that is something we should look at adding. (We'll fix the
permissions on the directory itself, but not on parent directories)

> The rollback bit was very nice, although it simply exits at
> that point. It would be better if it would go back to where
> you are choosing the data directory.

Default windows installer feature - on fatal error, it rolls back
everything.

> The main installation page is pretty well done. There is a
> typo towards the
> end: "you acn" instead of "you can", The screenshots also
> need to be updated to match what is seen on the 8.1
> installer. For one thing, that cool elephant logo is not
> there. I liked the logo. :)

Will fix. Been planning to do those screenshots for a long time, jus
tnever actually did it.

> For the conf files in the menus: is there a way to make the
> default editor wordpad instead of notepad?

We could, but why do you want it? Specifically, I see several problems
with using wordpad as the default:
1) It doesn't live in the same place always, depending on the language
of windows. (Yeha, we can work around this fairly easily)
2) You can install Windows without it. You can't install Windows iwthout
notepad, it'll always be there.
3) In some cases, Wordpad suddently decides you want to use Word format
for your .txt file, when you've pasted something in it for example. This
is really bad. I've never really figured out when or why, but I've
seenit happen.

> The psql program opens in a small window - can it be made larger?

Not easily.

> The psql history is not saved between sessions.

This is because we don't support readline on windows because it breaks
in most locales.

> For pgadmin, one hint said "is the 8th July" instead of "8th of July"

You'll have to talk to the pgadmin guys about that.

Thanks for all your comments!

//Magnus