RE: [lazarus] Project WiX opensource - make MSI from XML

[George Birbilis]

> > http://sourceforge.net/projects/wix/
> >
> > Useful opensource project (think some MS people are behind it, but
> > don't remember for sure) to make MSI (Windows Installer) files from
> > XML descriptions.
> >
> > Sending in case anyone wants to integrate installer
> creation utility
> > to Windows version of Lazarus
>
> What's the advantage of a .msi over a normal setup program?

Although I'm using InnoSetup mostly nowadays and I didn't keep up with the
evolution in the installation engines area (was using InstallShield etc. in
the past and custom-written Delphi installers or xcopy-style /
self-installing apps at their first run), I think the biggest benefit is the
possibility of making (and merging) patches for apps. See Windows/Microsoft
Update sites and Office Update site for example. With Office Update
especially the default is to download "diffs", not full files (and you need
either the installation media available or at install time you should have
selected to copy the needed installation info to disk), unless you do the
following:

---
Go to Office Update.
Click Check for Updates. Office Update will check your computer for updates
you need.
After Office Update checks your computer, click Options in the upper right
(just below the Go button).
On the Options for using Office Update page, select Use larger update files
that should not require access to my product CD or network installation
location.
Click Save. Office Update will check your computer again for updates you
need.
After Office Update checks your computer, click the Agree and Install button
to install the updates.
---

See
http://birbilis.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!2335BBEF59B92C54!143.entry
For some links about MSI and a link to an interesting MS blog article
explaining how they came to add their own SQL engine (relational database)
for the installer and what the guy thinks about that decision now looking
back. See a link I also have there to some example on querying an .MSI file
via SQL commands, interesting but maybe too much?


George Birbilis ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Computer & Informatics Engineer
Microsoft MVP J# for 2004-2006
Borland "Spirit of Delphi"
3D, QuickTime, QTVR, Java, Delphi,
ActiveX, .NET components, Robotics
http://www.kagi.com/birbilis
http://birbilis.spaces.live.com




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RE: Re[2]: [lazarus] Project WiX opensource - make MSI from XML

[George Birbilis]

> > And, like the case of .NET, there are rumors about that no install
> > technologies except .msi will be supported on Windows in
> some future.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear%2C_uncertainty_and_doubt

This is impossible to force I think, unless you mean for installers not
running from admin / power user accounts. In fact I'd be voting for such
thing cause the various installers arround currently do system hell

BTW, in Vista there's no Windows help by default installed, but only HTML
help, so for older apps' help to work correctly, one has to download an
additional module (luckily it autoinstalls via the OS help system which
explains the issue - the question is how much size would it take to install
it by default? Maybe they want to eventually avoid maintaining it
security-wise when it practically disappears and to minimize the attack
surface of the default OS installations [which are the most percent arround
I suppose]). Tried it with Vista beta2 though, maybe in final version of the
OS they put it in by default


George Birbilis ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Computer & Informatics Engineer
Microsoft MVP J# for 2004-2006
Borland "Spirit of Delphi"
3D, QuickTime, QTVR, Java, Delphi,
ActiveX, .NET components, Robotics
http://www.kagi.com/birbilis
http://birbilis.spaces.live.com




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Re: [lazarus] Data Corruption in FPC_INITIALIZEUNITS?

[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]

Have you tryed to compile using an older widget-lcl library?

If youre using gnome, try to compile it for kde, and viceversa.

Or make a downgrade to something-older-that-works.

Compiling your software on a machine that never changes, however, is a 
good choice to avoid this problems.
I often use virtual machines that i never power on to compile very 
important binaries for my softwares.

Hello All

I am having a very strange problem with my Artificial Chemistry simulator, 
SimSoup, which uses Lazarus for the user interface.


I think that the problem could be a data corruption during Lazarus / Free 
Pascal initialisation.


The program has been running fine for a couple of years, but I have recently 
upgraded to SUSE 10.1 and Lazarus 0.9.20 beta, and now it often crashes on 
startup, and when it does run, the simulation statistics display (a Bitmap 
painted on a TPaintPox) is offset to the right by about 200 pixels, although 
it rights itself if I leave the tab that contains the display and then return 
to it.


I have included below output from running Valgrind on the program, and 
highlighted what look like the first and second signs of trouble.


In both cases, there seems to be a call to FPC_INITIALIZEUNITS. The call is 
made from P$SIMSOUP_LAZ_GUI_PRESENT_main. I think that this must be a 
compiler generated entry in my SIMSOUP_LAZ_GUI_PRESENT library. The line 
number mentioned (303) is actually the last line in the source file for the 
library. I think that P$SIMSOUP_LAZ_GUI_PRESENT_main is being called before 
any of my own code runs (eg in the 'second sign of trouble' it is called as a 
result of the invokation of  _dl_init (in /lib/ld-2.4.so). I suppose that 
this is being invoked when the shared object that implements the library is 
loaded.


The overall structure of the simulator is that the main logic runs in a C++ 
program. The very first thing the C++ main program does is to call the Free 
Pascal SimSoup_Lazarus function (see below) in the SIMSOUP_LAZ_GUI_PRESENT 
library, using the 'C' calling interface. The problem occurs before execution 
gets into SimSoup_Lazarus.


Any help on this will be much appreciated. I've been struggling with this for 
a couple of weeks now and not getting very far.


Here is the SimSoup_Lazarus function:-

function  SimSoup_Lazarus(): Integer;  cdecl;
begin
  writeln('Entered Stop SimSoup_Lazarus');
  Application.Initialize;
  Application.CreateForm(TMainForm, Main_Form);
  Application.Run;
  SimSoup_Lazarus := 0;
end;

Here is the Valgrind output:-

==7948== Memcheck, a memory error detector.
==7948== Copyright (C) 2002-2005, and GNU GPL'd, by Julian Seward et al.
==7948== Using LibVEX rev 1575, a library for dynamic binary translation.
==7948== Copyright (C) 2004-2005, and GNU GPL'd, by OpenWorks LLP.
==7948== Using valgrind-3.1.1, a dynamic binary instrumentation framework.
==7948== Copyright (C) 2000-2005, and GNU GPL'd, by Julian Seward et al.
==7948== For more details, rerun with: -v
==7948== 
==7948== My PID = 7948, parent PID = 7925.  Prog and args are:

==7948==./SimSoup
==7948== 
==7948== Invalid read of size 4
==7948==at 0x4330814: 
SYSTEM_TRY_CONCAT_FREE_CHUNK$PMEMCHUNK_VAR$$PMEMCHUNK_VAR 
(in /home/chris/mydata/Projects/SimSoup/simsoup-cpp/simsoup/debug/libsimsoup_laz_gui_present.so)
==7948==by 0x4330E1A: SYSTEM_SYSFREEMEM_VAR$PMEMCHUNK_VAR$$LONGINT 
(in /home/chris/mydata/Projects/SimSoup/simsoup-cpp/simsoup/debug/libsimsoup_laz_gui_present.so)
==7948==by 0x4330E6E: SYSTEM_SYSFREEMEM$POINTER$$LONGINT 
(in /home/chris/mydata/Projects/SimSoup/simsoup-cpp/simsoup/debug/libsimsoup_laz_gui_present.so)
==7948==by 0x433008F: SYSTEM_FREEMEM$POINTER$$LONGINT 
(in /home/chris/mydata/Projects/SimSoup/simsoup-cpp/simsoup/debug/libsimsoup_laz_gui_present.so)
==7948==by 0x43213DA: fpc_ansistr_decr_ref 
(in /home/chris/mydata/Projects/SimSoup/simsoup-cpp/simsoup/debug/libsimsoup_laz_gui_present.so)
==7948==by 0x433FFF9: 
CLASSES_TSTRINGLIST_$__FIND$ANSISTRING$LONGINT$$BOOLEAN 
(in /home/chris/mydata/Projects/SimSoup/simsoup-cpp/simsoup/debug/libsimsoup_laz_gui_present.so)
==7948==by 0x4340084: CLASSES_TSTRINGLIST_$__INDEXOF$ANSISTRING$$LONGINT 
(in /home/chris/mydata/Projects/SimSoup/simsoup-cpp/simsoup/debug/libsimsoup_laz_gui_present.so)
==7948==by 0x447D6FA: 
WSLCLCLASSES_REGISTERWSCOMPONENT$TCOMPONENTCLASS$TWSLCLCOMPONENTCLASS$TWSPRIVATECLASS_GETNODE$TCLASS$$PCLASSNODE 
(wslclclasses.pp:163)
==7948==by 0x447D03C: 
WSLCLCLASSES_REGISTERWSCOMPONENT$TCOMPONENTCLASS$TWSLCLCOMPONENTCLASS$TWSPRIVATECLASS 
(in /home/chris/mydata/Projects/SimSoup/simsoup-cpp/simsoup/debug/libsimsoup_laz_gui_present.so)

==7948==by 0x44A54F2: GTKWSCONTROLS_init (gtkwscontrols.pp:931)

*  FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE  *
==7948==by 0x432DF88: fpc_initializeunits 
(in /home/chris/mydata/Projects/SimSoup/simsoup-cpp/simsoup/debug/libsimsoup_laz_gui_present.so)
==7948==by 0x431F6F3: P$SIMSOUP_LAZ_GUI_PRESENT_main 
(simsoup_laz_gui_pr

[lazarus] "Special" Lazarus Component Request

[[EMAIL PROTECTED]]

Hi, like i asked Lazarus forum, i have a problem that i don't know how 
to resolve.


I'm developing an application with Lazarus on Windows Mobile 2003 
(winCe), crosscompiling with Lazarus cause the Pocket PC have an ARM 
architecture.


Thanks to Sekel help, i managed to do it and i'm creating some forms and 
buttons... but the hardest (and most important) task i have to commit is 
to make a mysql connection from the Pocket PC to a local area address 
through TCP/IP socket.


For this, i need the component named: sqldb (or, if you know that i can 
use different and more diffuse component, just tell me)


Compiling for i386 and win32, i got no problems to do it. But... i get 
errors on doing it on wince-arm crosscompiling.

Looking into lazarus directory i think i found my problem...

I need the sqldb component files:
registersqldb.o
sqldblaz.o
registersqldb.ppu
sqldblaz.ppu

Compiled for arm-wince.

I got the i386-win32 version under:
C:\apps\lazarus\components\sqldb\lib\i386-win32\

But the arm-wince directory (in the lib directory) is empty.

I think that those component are very important in order to consider 
Lazarus a multiplatform software for developers... cause database 
connection is very important and mysql is the most used database in the 
world.


So please tell me how i can get this work done, and, if some Lazarus 
developer read this request, please provide to (cross)compile me those 
(i thing open source) libraries.


Thanks in advance, and compliments for your project,
a new (but very surprised) Lazarus user.

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Re: [lazarus] Project WiX opensource - make MSI from XML

[Florian Klaempfl]

Sergei Gorelkin schrieb:
> 
> And, like the case of .NET, 

I'll take the .Net being the only "API" serious as soon as MS shows an office
being completely .Net.

> there are rumors about that no install
> technologies except .msi will be supported on Windows in some future.
> 

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