Hi, I decided to try to build a cabal -> wix converter, cabal2wix, to make it easier to generate Windows installers for cabal-packages. My main target is ghc-compiled libraries. There are few issues I've ran into and I'd appreciate any comments on them. I'll try to publish the darcs repo somewhere if there's interest. Some of the issues are gray, as I don't understand all the details myself, and reading Cabal's code isn't very enlightening. Issue 1: Cabal puts (at least) docs under Program Files\Common Files - this separates docs from other parts of the program by logical placing, which is pretty annoying if you need to offer way to relocate installation (say to user's home directory). I am considering moving docs next to library files in installers cabal2wix generates. Issue 2: setup copy --destdir=foo is confusing in Windows. If my prefix is c:\Program Files (like it is if I run configure without options), the directory structure after copy is foo\Program Files - ie. unsuable locally because drive letter is missing, and unusable at remote locations, because Program Files is not localized. I'd like not to use all possible directory flags at configure time, because it is impossible to know how different packages react to them. (currently cabal2wix assumes no directories were changed.) Suggestion: Make copy-hook unable to copy random files on their own, this way there could be setup copy --list-links, which would be nicer, IMHO. As the list could also differentiate between different types of files. Profiling lib, shared libs (dev and end-user installer in one.) Issue 3: Currently cabal2wix reads dist\setup-config to find out package and compiler information. This is pretty stupid, as LocalBuildInfo structure might not be that stable, and cabal2wix can only guarantee working with the same Cabal it was built with. cabal2wix could read installed-pkg-config (and maybe .cabal) to get package name and version. But I can't see how to get compiler information from any other place than setup-config. It'd also make sense to read solved build-depends info, but I currently don't have plans to do that. Issue 4: There is no proper registry keys for finding compiler installation. Neil's installer adds HKCU\Software\Haskell\GHC\InstallDir. I'd much prefer if the registry key path contained ghc version in it, and HKLM might be preferable on some multi-user machines. It'd be great if we could find recommended location for this info. (And use it for ghc 6.8 releases) My tentative proposal: Use HKLM if "all users" install, HKCU otherwise. Use \Software\Haskell\COMPILER\VERSION\InstallDir for storing path to base location of installed compiler. (i.e. it shouldn't point to bin-directory.) Small issues: * License file is not installed. * Docs need relinking at install location, that's a bit annoying. Big thank you for Duncan and Ian for useful comments at irc. Issue list is shorter now ;-) Thanks, Esa