Re: Native compilation on Windows, was Re: Bootstrap Compilation Speed

[H. Dieter Wilhelm]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: "H. Dieter Wilhelm" <dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de>
>> Cc: corwin@bru.st,  phillip.lord@russet.org.uk,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
>> Date: Fri, 21 Jan 2022 20:22:09 +0100
>> 
>> It'll work for the libexec\ and share\ branches.
>> 
>> But I'm afraid, currently, not for all files in the bin\ branch, they'll
>> be overwritten after a default (side-by-side?)  installation.  For
>> example runemacs.exe and emacsclient.exe are then only working for the
>> last installed release.
>
> Why is that a problem?  the old versions can still be invoked, just
> not via the default methods.  Which is exactly the expected result
> when installing a newer version.

True it's possible to run the Emacs-27.1 executable after installing
Emacs-27.2 (checked it).

But I see no way to run an 27.1 release of emacsclientw.exe or
runemacs.exe!  (I don't like this unsightly and useless terminal window
when not starting from runemacs.exe.)

Wouldn't it make sense to provide also emacsclientw-27.1.exe and
consorts?

>> For Emacs-27 there are more than 150 .exe files, moreover .dll and
>> scripts in bin\.  Maybe this will work if one is installing ever newer
>> releases but in the opposite case, I'm not sure..
>
> Be sure.  I'm doing this on my system all the time.

Just copied an Emacs-26 tree "over" Emacs-27.

Emacs-27.2.exe still seems to work but I've got a bad feeling replacing
newer "support stuff" with older..

By the way, with Emacs-26 and 27 there's an issue with the network
manager when running M-x list-packages (certificate expired or not
verified).

After that, I've take the last Emacs snapshot 28.0.50 for Windows and
copied it "over" above tree.  Now the certificate issue is gone.

By implication, this means if I'm "ironing" Emacs-27 over Emacs-28 I'll
get a problem.  As I wanted to say, it is probably safer doing
side-by-side installations from older to newer releases and never the
other way around.

>> (But I guess few Windows users intend to run multiple Emacs releases,
>> just using the latest and greatest.)
>
> Most of them, yes.  But there's no reason to force them to remove the
> old version.

I agree

>> By the way.  Would you mind to tell me why an emacsclientw.exe together
>> with emacsclient.exe is needed
>
> That's explained in nt/README.

Thank you, but I need to run emacsclient on Windows to understand it
fully.

>> and what emacs.pdmp is for?
>
> That's the preloaded packages that are dumped when Emacs is built and
> loaded when Emacs is started.

I see, not all necessary data must be packed into one executable, for
example emacs.exe, thanks.

  Dieter

-- 
Best wishes
H. Dieter Wilhelm
Zwingenberg, Germany