Binary patches for Windows [poll]

[Zaroth]

As you may have noticed, there are currently no automatic patch installers for Windows releases. This is unlike most commercial games out there, which provide patches in such convenient form (or ship with auto-updaters). Since I wanted to learn an install script language (NSIS) anyway, I decided I could help with this.

For people willing to test my patch installer, it is available to download from sourceforge. Be aware that it's in beta, unofficial and can have bugs. For known issues, check the list below.

Download link: Windows 1.8.x to 1.8.5 binary patch installer (39.5 MB)

For interested: Source code (NSIS script)

Known issues:

• Just the binaries and game files are patched to the newest version - none of the shortcut names, directory names, menu entries, registry entries etc. containing string 1.8.x is updated to string 1.8.5 on patching. That is, despite seeing the correct version number and having up-to-date binaries, you will still see old 1.8.x version string all over the place in Windows.
• Uninstaller works, it isn't broken (patch doesn't replace the uninstaller binary). However, it won't remove any files added between patched release and the release you patch up to. There aren't many of them, since it's the stable branch, but there are some (at least between 1.8.0 and 1.8.5).
• The patch weighs ~38 MB, while it could weigh ~23 MB. That's because of one music file and many graphic files changed between 1.8.0 and 1.8.5. However, according to Ivanovic, that shouldn't happen in stable branch, so hopefully in 1.10.x the patches will manage to keep smaller size.
• Script doesn't check what version of Wesnoth are you actually patching (I'm not sure how to do that since we don't include version string in binary properties), it just checks if Wesnoth.exe is in the selected directory
• Build of the patch is not fully automated. It isn't much work to build, but still, it would take ~10 minutes for a new release to set everything up and generate the patch.
  
  • List of changed files is created with (modified by me a bit) NSIS Patch generator run on two installed directories of Wesnoth (1.8.0 and 1.8.5 with above patch). Maybe the preferred behavior should be rather to grab the list of changed files from SVN and always include compiled binaries in the patch.

Any feedback is welcome, as well on the source code, features as on the need of such patch. If you feel it would be useful to you, please state your interest in the poll above.

Edit: For the brave ones, I prepared an incremental patch allowing to quickly update your 1.9.5 to 1.9.6. Since it doesn't check for the version of Wesnoth being patched, please don't try it to force it to patch e.g. 1.9.4 - bad things may happen (and it surely won't work).
Also, I used the same procedure for generating as I did for the 1.8.5 patch, so other weird things may happen (such as reported putting northeners.ogg into macros/ directory in the previous patch...). The current procedure doesn't update registry/menu entries (that's also why I don't touch uninstall.exe in the patcher, since if I did it, it would look for the 1.9.6 registry entries when uninstalling), so - be warned.
The uninstaller does work, however, so if something goes wrong, you can always easily clean up and return to old method of getting new versions

Windows 1.9.5 to 1.9.6 incremental binary patch installer (6.7 MB)

[pauxlo]

There is the missing option "I'm interested, but I don't play Wesnoth on Windows".

Is there any chance to port it to other platforms?

[Anonymissimus]

There is the missing option "I'm interested, but I don't play Wesnoth on Windows".

Is there any chance to port it to other platforms?

The wesnoth source code is said to be much less difficult to handle (subversion) and compile on Linux than on win and also is available split up into separate packages (if one uses the package manager) which are (most of them, except core etc) not neccessarily needed. Thus there's no need for such binary patches since the whole point is to reduce downloaded data size.

Voted for "play on win but not interested".

[ancestral]

There is the missing option "I'm interested, but I don't play Wesnoth on Windows".

Is there any chance to port it to other platforms?

I am also interested, but don't play Wesnoth on Windows.

Actually, this sparked some interest by me and I've discovered a few things that might help aid my binary patch project. So I'm resurrecting it and if successful I'll have binary patching for Mac.

[Exasperation]

I tried it out to move from 1.8.4 to 1.8.5 and wound up with a spare copy of northerners.ogg (the one changed music file) in data/core/macros (instead of data/core/music). Seems likely the patcher put it in the wrong place.

[Gambit]

Very interested even though I don't use Windows. People have been asking for this forever.

[Insinuator]

This is wonderful work, Zaroth. I'm extremely suprised by how many negative votes there have been. What could possibly be wrong with smaller download sizes? Are these people addicted to Supersized meals?

[Mountain_King]

I think the reason they're voting against is because they don't know that this whole "update" thing won't end up being lots of lower quality updates, as opposed to the current system, where there are fewer, yet higher quality updates. That is, they're afraid that this will sacrifice some quality for quantity.

I mean, not like I voted down.......
Okay I voted down! >)'-')>

[shadowmaster]

Okay I voted down! >)'-')>

And forgot this, along with the fact that, uh, the background isn’t always white for all users? (Fixed it for you.)

[Caphriel]

I play Wesnoth on Windows, but I maintain installations of old stable versions for no reason in particular, and my connection speed doesn't mind downloading the whole thing every time a new stable version comes out.

[Anonymissimus]

I'm extremely suprised by how many negative votes there have been. What could possibly be wrong with smaller download sizes? Are these people addicted to Supersized meals?

I voted negative only since svn access and compiling is a better option. Thus, for anyone who plays on windows, and doesn't know what this "svn access and compiling" is or anyone who can't do that: Your natural vote is "yes, you're interested".

[Gambit]

Is 1.8+svn compatible with the stable MP server?

[Anonymissimus]

Is 1.8+svn compatible with the stable MP server?

Obviously yes. It connects to it by default and was always quite stable for me.

[Insinuator]

I voted negative only since svn access and compiling is a better option. Thus, for anyone who plays on windows, and doesn't know what this "svn access and compiling" is or anyone who can't do that: Your natural vote is "yes, you're interested".

Oh, my bad. So you're just opposed to more options; to widening the field for those who choose not to invest the time compiling or learning how to compile.

[Atz]

Patches which aren't 300MB? I am VERY interested!