Windows Installer
XAMPP zip package
- For release 4.1.2:
- Increase the max_input_vars (new to php 5.4 it appears) setting to 3000. (described in xammp-openemr installation instructions)
- Turn on the cURL extension (described in xammp-openemr installation instructions)
One click installation
This hasn't been offered since OpenEMR version 3.2.0
Given the comprehensiveness of NSIS, the fact of it's own scripting and macro language/implementation, all the various options it allows for, coupled with my not knowing exactly what the minimum viable features are the desired NSIS/XAMPP based OpenEMR Windows installer (e.g. minimum required configuration and installation of the AMP stack), it is beyond my practical ability to get a serviceable Windows installer compiled from tested correct NSIS scripts within the next few days - though I will continue to work on it to gain the skills and perhaps be more able in the near future to quickly deliver finished work in the installer area that you can use.
In light of that, and your understandable desire to get it done quickly/in the next few days, I have identified two Open Source projects that make their entire build system available for download and that both use NSIS scripts and the XAMPP for Windows zip file distribution as the basis for their one compile NSIS Windows installer.
They both do many things as part of their NSIS scripts that you/OpenEMR may not need, but are the best exact examples I could find of others doing exactly what you described: use of NSIS, use of the XAMPP zipped file based Windows distribution, configuration of the AMP stack running under Windows, etc.
In other words, their NSIS installer is based on unzipping the XAMPP windows distribution, file copy the XAMPP amp stack to c:\xampp, running of the XAMPP .bat file to install MySQL and Apache as Windows services, configure them along with PHP.ini, set MySQL database user accounts, etc, and then copy the given project's PHP based files/web site into the htdocs section of the c:\XAMPP installed directory structure. They both of course document the NSIS project's entire directory structure for compiling with NSIS and include of course the NSIS script files source.
I am sure that the NSIS scipts they provide for their developer releases, for those wishing to compile the NSIS scipts into a Windows installer themselves, can serve as the basis for doing the same/what you want to do.
The OpenEMR core team, and the teams you mentioned previously, can likely review and revise much faster than I the NSIS scripts and build systems of these two Open Source projects given your/their familiarity with NSIS already, and deep understanding of what OpenEMR requires and does not for successful implementation and configuration, e.g., necessity or not of creatin an uninstaller, creation and provisioning of AMP stack to support correctly configured OpenEMR instance, creation of needed MySQL database accounts, config of php.ini specifically to support OpenEMR, config of Apache and MySQL Server and user account setup for OpenEMR's specific needs, etc.
I hope this helps if you weren't already aware of these two Open Source NSIS and XAMPP for Windows based build system resources.
OCS Inventory NG Install/Build system resources:
http://wiki.ocsinventory-ng.org/index.php/Developers:HOWTO_package_windows_server_release http://wiki.ocsinventory-ng.org/index.php/Developers:Main
OrangeHRM Install/Build system resources:
http://222.165.133.50/wiki/index.php/Compiling:_Windows_installer http://www.orangehrm.com/wiki/index.php/Orange_Developer_Wiki http://www.orangehrm.com/wiki/index.php/Setting_up_Development_Environment
These resources for NSIS IDEs (use of wizard-driven NSIS project creation, debugging, syntax highlighting, etc.) may be helpful as well:
http://eclipsensis.sourceforge.net/index.shtml
http://www.labour-saving.com/nsis/nsis.html
http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Venis_IX
Adam Cassel
