I'm temporarily stuck on a Windows machine on which I have no administrator privileges. I would like to get node.js "installed" in a directory without using an installer, which requires elevation. On the node.js site, I don't see this distribution option.
Is anyone aware of a file-based (zip, self-extracting exe, etc) download that I can use to run node.js without using an installer on a Windows machine? Is there a way to run the installer without administrator elevation?
OK, it turns out that the EXE download for Windows is all that node.js needs to run. I had thought that that was an exe for doing an installation. Just running the downloaded .exe works.
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I'm trying to run an application build with Electron on Linux. They app maker offers an .exe installation file. So I figured I'd install it in WINE, but I seem to be missing something the app needs to run.
Since the install is an .exe, do I need WINE? And if I need WINE, what do I need to install to make the app work? I have tried two Electron apps, both only downloadable as a .exe install file.
Electron adds os native calls, so .exe files usually do not work. WINE is not able to emulate all of those calls, so if it isn't working for you, then you are out of luck I guess. Look for apps that offer linux versions, like https://www.electronjs.org/apps/camunda-modeler. If you have access to the repository, chances are they build it using electron-builder. You can just build it yourself with the command electron-builder build --linux in most cases
I recently downloaded the debian installer iso to use with virtualbox. For security reasons, I mounted it to ensure it was legit. I noticed a file labeled setup.exe. Why would a linux installer be a windows file, and how would the computer be able to run it?
I then decided to look throught the microsoft windows installer. It too used an exe file. How could it run the exe to install windows without windows instlled?
The Debian project has an installer for Microsoft Windows that provides a UI for installing GNU/Linux beginning on a MS Windows platform.
The Windows kernel can be loaded from disk and once it is loaded, like on install, it can start running a .exe file. For similar reasons Linux is an elf format binary. This is how a "Live" disk works, it loads the kernel and then loads up the entire OS including window manager from disk.
To your first question :
I bet you are running VirtualBox on a Windows client right? So there is nothing wrong with using a windows file :)
I've looked on the Node-Webkit site and it appears to say that I can make an application with HTML5 and compile it for Windows, Linux of Mac so it will run without the need for the user to install Node.js separately. However, when I try their sample apps (e.g. https://github.com/leanote/desktop-app found on the official NW.js page: https://github.com/nwjs/nw.js/wiki/List-of-apps-and-companies-using-nw.js ), the ".exe" file does not run the app (on either Win 7 or XP). It just opens a simple browser window with the address "nw:blank" and a gray page says "NW.JS" and does nothing.
Can these apps be packaged and run without requiring the user to install node.js?
https://github.com/leanote/desktop-app 's nw folder is not the distribute leanote app, it's just the NW. You must build the desktop-app. The README has written How to build it, How to develop it
You can download the distributed version via: https://github.com/leanote/desktop-app/releases
You might try... node-webkit-builder ... which is supposed to build a huge .EXE file which is self-contained for you. Otherwise, the instructions for distributing... how to package and distribute, see Step 2b.
I have easily installed Node.js before on Macs and other PCs, but the PC I have now at work restricts the running of .msi files.
Is there a way to manually install and configure node.js and npm on Windows 7? I have access to Powershell.
Installing nodejs (and npm) on a Windows 7 machine does not require any "magic" if you have Admin access on the target machine and do not care about setting up the expected "uninstall", various Windows performance counters, event tracing or Start menu entries.
To manually install from an existing installation on one machine to another machine, simply
Copy the entire contents of your "\Program Files\nodejs" and "\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\npm" directories as well as the "\Users\USERNAME\.npmrc" file to the same directories on target machine. (Replace USERNAME with your own Windows login name.)
Edit the "\Users\USERNAME\.npmrc" file to replace the source username with the username on the target machine.
Add "C:\Program Files\nodejs" and "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\npm" to your PATH.
If you'd like to manually install direct from the MSI (without an existing installation to work from), get Scott Willeke's excellent lessmsi program, which allows you to extract all the files from any msi archive and discover all the actions taken by the Windows Installer, such as required edits to the Register, etc. (Though for nodejs, you'll only need to edit the Registry to add the proper keys to uninstall it automagically.)
My Windows application runs under Wine, but the installation is a bit of a headache for laymen, and the wrappers I've seen online (PlayOnLinux, Wine Doors) require even more packages to be installed. Is there a way to make a package that will install Wine if the user needs it to be installed, install the application and shortcuts, all with minimal user hassle?
I don't believe there's any pre-made way to do this, but you could probably make a Debian package pretty easily that would depend on Wine, copy an MSI onto the machine, then run Wine's msiexec /i /q as the post-install script
Edit: Make sure to think about the uninstall case too! I.e. in the pre-uninstall script, run msiexec again as well.
You can bundle Wine -- that's what Picasa does -- or you can just make your package list Wine as a dependency; then the user's package manager will automatically install Wine for the user when they install your package.
Ideally your Linux package wouldn't run the Windows installer, but rather have all the files already unpacked.
The trick is to arrange for the files your package installs in /usr to show up in each user's .wine directory. You can look at how Picasa does this, but really the Wine community needs to document how to do this much better.
As always, ask at winehq.org if you need more info.
If you'd like to target the Mac OS, you can use WineBottler:
http://winebottler.kronenberg.org/
This project exists just for bundling Wine into a native Mac .app bundle in a way that's fairly hidden from the user.
Answer is simple:
Create Elf installer.
Pack Elf installer onto Exe installer resources.
Exe installer should unpack Elf installer on startup.
Exe installer must tries to run Elf installer after unpack (system call or some think).
If operation fail, we do normal install.
If operation didn't fail, we close Exe installer.