This README is a guide for creating a Spack installer for Windows using the make-installer command. The installer is an executable file that users can run to install Spack like any other Windows binary.

Before proceeding, follow the setup instructions in Steps 1 and 2 of Getting Started on Windows.

The only additional prerequisite for making the installer is Wix. Wix is a utility used for .msi creation and can be downloaded and installed at https://wixtoolset.org/releases/. The Visual Studio extensions are not necessary.

To use Spack, run spack_cmd.bat. This will provide a Windows command prompt with an environment properly set up with Spack and its prerequisites.

Ensure that Python and CMake are on your PATH. If needed, you may add the CMake executable provided by Visual Studio to your path, which will look something like:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\<year>\<distribution>\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake

IMPORTANT: If you use Tab to complete any part of this path, the console will automatically add quotation marks to the start and the end since it will see the spaces and want to parse the whole of it as a string. This is incorrect for our purposes so before submitting the command, ensure that the quotes are removed. You will encounter configuration errors if you fail to do this.

There are two ways to create the installer using Spack's make-installer command. The recommended method is to build the installer using a local checkout of Spack source (release or development), using the -s flag to specify the directory where the local checkout is. For example, if the local checkout is in a directory called spack-develop and want to generate an installer with the source there, you can use:

spack make-installer -s spack-develop tmp

Both the Spack source directory (e.g. spack-develop) and installer destination directory (e.g. tmp) may be an absolute path or relative to the current working directory. The entire contents of the specified directory will be included in the installer (e.g. .git files or local changes).

Alternatively, if you would like to create an installer from a release version of Spack, say, 0.16.0, and store it in tmp, you can use the following command:

spack make-installer -v 0.16.0 tmp

IMPORTANT: Windows features are not currently supported in Spack's official release branches, so an installer created using this method will not run on Windows.

Regardless of your method, a file called Spack.exe will be created inside the destination directory. This executable bundles the Spack installer (Spack.msi also located in destination directory) and the git installer.

After accepting the terms of service, select where on your computer you would like Spack installed, and after a few minutes Spack, Python and git will be installed and ready for use.

IMPORTANT: To avoid permissions issues, it is recommended to select an install location other than C:\Program Files.

IMPORTANT: There is a specific option that must be chosen when letting Git install. When given the option of adjusting your PATH, choose the Git from the command line and also from 3rd-party software option. This will automatically update your PATH variable to include the git command. Certain Spack commands expect git to be part of the PATH. If this step is not performed properly, certain Spack comands will not work.

If your Spack installation needs to be modified, repaired, or uninstalled, you can do any of these things by rerunning Spack.exe.

Running the installer creates a shortcut on your desktop that, when launched, will run spack_cmd.bat and launch a console with its initial directory being wherever Spack was installed on your computer. If Python is found on your PATH, that will be used. If not, the Python included with the installer will be used when running Spack.