Installation woes

Fundamentally if the user wants to run my software then I want to get it
running on their hardware. If after they have tried it ( and hopefully
liked it) they want to use it as a business tool then I am in a position
to HIGHLY recommend the necessary upgrades to hardware/OS etc that they
may need.

Firstly there are no complaints about postgres or the installer both
work very well.

q1: I would like an almost silent install and to that effect have
located the following on the installer project site:

msiexec /i postgresql-8.0-beta2-dev3.msi datadir="C:\ghum\data"
LISTENPORT=5432 INITDBOK=1 DOSERVICE=1 DOINITDB=1
SERVICEID="pgsql-80-beta-2" SERVICENAME="PostgreSQL Database Server 8.0
beta 2" SERVICEACCOUNT="postgres" SERVICEPASSWORD="PasswordUserPostgres"
SERVICEPASSWORDV="PasswordUserPostgres" LOCALE="german"
ENCODING="LATIN1" SUPERUSER="postgres" SUPERPASSWORD="leberwurst"
SUPERPASSWORDV="leberwurst"

I would like the installer to show a "You are installing PostgreSQL V 8
" banner with a pointer to the postgresql.org website but still bypass
the normal installation questions..

q2: Is the above command in a format that is going to be supported in
later versions?

q3: Fat32 limitation. I have no evidence of the number of machines
using FAT32 with W2000 / XP but I expect it will be significant. What I
think I will have to do is put up a web page explaining the issues
unless such a page already exists with the postgres documentation?

q4: another option may be the cywin + postgres project. Does this let
users access older operating systems W98 / Millenium edition? If so then
is there a package my installer program can run? ie check OS/environment
if ok run pg v8 else give warning / option and install cygwin+postgres.
I don't mind if the install for W98 /fat32 is an older version of
postgres. Indeed an older version would be helpful in emhasising the
need to upgrade.

I suppose posgresql is not "normally" a enduser software product. It has
been designed as an industrial strength RDBMS for installation by
professionals. In that environment it excells. I will lookforward to
hearing how others are tackling the "embedded install".

best regards

Richard Sydney-Smith

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