NSIS v3.0 Final

[Anders]

Long-awaited version 3 of NSIS is finally ready. It comes with optional Unicode support, still works on all the same versions of Windows, supports Windows 10, and adds a lot of other small features and fixes. Huge thanks goes out to Anders and Wizou for making this happen and Jim Park for the original patch.

• Release Notes
• Known issues:
  • WinForms/GDI+ font failure in 3rd-party plug-ins on Win7 (NSIS 2.47-2.51 and 3.0b3+)

[Yathosho]

*champagne*

Are here any maintainers of package repositories for Debian, Fedora, Slackware, MacPorts and the likes? I noticed several of these are outdated, and I think the big 3 is worth changing this.

Current Status:

- Debian (Jessie): nsis 2.46-6
- Debian (Wheezy): nsis 2.46-10
- Fedora 24: mingw-nsis 2.50-1.fc24
- Slackware: nsis 2.46
- Chocolatey: nsis 3.02.0.20160720 (that's RC2, I think)
- MacPorts: nsis 2.45
- Homebrew: nsis 3.0rc2
- NetBSD/OpenBSD: nsis 2.12nb5 (ouch!)

I have already submitted a PR for Homebrew and try to work out a solution for MacPorts.

[Yathosho]

Current Status:
- Debian (Jessie): nsis 2.46-6
- MacPorts: nsis 2.45
- Homebrew: nsis 3.0rc2

As I've just notified the Fedora maintainer, I wanted to give you an update on the status since last time:

* Debian (Jessie): nsis 3.0-3 (experimental)
* MacPorts: nsis 3.0
* Homebrew: makensis 3.0

[T.Slappy]

What is going on in these Linux versions? I think the installers are Windows only so why is it important to have so many Linux machines? Is this because of the build?

[JasonFriday13]

The compiler is cross-platform. It's easier for the other cross-platform projects to build installers the same way as they build the windows ports on linux (using a linux cross-compiler to output windows binaries).

[Yathosho]

What is going on in these Linux versions? I think the installers are Windows only so why is it important to have so many Linux machines? Is this because of the build?

The installers are still Windows-only. The cross-plattform compiler can be useful, for instance, to build an installer on your (web)server – where Unix/Linux is dominant.

Personally, whenever I have to update my old installer scripts, I do it on a non-Windows platform. For me, that's more comfortable than working in a Windows VM.

[Roberto.Bagnara]

Hi there. Does anybody know where I can download a precompiled package of nsis-3.0 for Ubuntu? (I am having problems compiling it from source.)

[JasonFriday13]

What kind of problems compiling?

First off, you need the zlib1g-dev package installed (the name might vary depending on the version, ubuntu 12.04 uses this name).

If you have a cross-compiler installed, you can build most of the package using: scons SKIPMISC="zip2exe","NSIS Menu"

If you don't have a cross-compiler, you can use the windows package for all the data files, and replace the windows makensis binary with the linux binary, compile using: scons SKIPSTUBS=all SKIPPLUGINS=all SKIPUTILS=all SKIPMISC=all NSIS_CONFIG_CONST_DATA_PATH=no

This is covered in the NSIS help files as well: http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Docs/AppendixG.html.

[Roberto.Bagnara]

Thanks Jason. I was following the NSIS help files. The problem I had was due to a missing trailing dash in the document you linked: "XGCC_W32_PREFIX=i686-w64-mingw32" should be "XGCC_W32_PREFIX=i686-w64-mingw32-".

[JasonFriday13]

Oh OK. I don't use XGCC_W32_PREFIX because scons picks up the cross-compiler automatically for me.

[Anders]

The problem I had was due to a missing trailing dash in the document you linked: "XGCC_W32_PREFIX=i686-w64-mingw32" should be "XGCC_W32_PREFIX=i686-w64-mingw32-".

"i686-w64-mingw32-" is already on the list of things searched by crossmingw.py so I'm not sure why it was not picked up automatically. Did you try it without setting XGCC_W32_PREFIX?

[Yathosho]

Hi there. Does anybody know where I can download a precompiled package of nsis-3.0 for Ubuntu? (I am having problems compiling it from source.)

Have a look at the experimental Debian package

https://packages.debian.org/experimental/nsis

[Yathosho]

FYI

It seems that NSIS v3 has finally landed in the stable branch of Debian, with NSIS v3.04-1 being the stable release

https://packages.debian.org/stable/nsis

[T.Slappy]

Hello @Yathosho
Can you explain how the NSIS on Debian works?

I have experiences with Windows only - I suppose it is possible to build the scripts on Debian but not running the installer itself?

[JasonFriday13]

The idea is that for cross platform projects, it's easier for them if they are able to compile the windows specific installer without needing windows itself to be present or installed. This is the same reason mingw32 and mingw-w64 exist.