Feature request: Publish .zip archives in addition to self-extracting 7z .exe's

[friism]

The self-extracting 7z archives that are currently released (eg. for the portable version) are difficult to install in a headless manner because they require first installing 7z.

Windows/PowerShell has built-in .zip support (with Expand-Archive). Would it make sense to publish .zip archives in addition to the assorted .exe's?

[shiftkey]

they require first installing 7z.

I don't believe this is the case.

You can also control the extraction of the archive from the command line:

> .\PortableGit-2.11.0-64-bit.7z.exe -y -o "C:/git-for-windows"

This isn't an ideal solution, as it exits early and pops a progress bar. I'm sure I'm missing something from the docs...

[dscho]

The self-extracting 7z archives that are currently released (eg. for the portable version) are difficult to install in a headless manner because they require first installing 7z.

Why not use the NuGet package: https://www.nuget.org/packages/GitForWindows/.

[dscho]

To explain my reluctance for .zip packages: the space difference between .zip and .7z are huge. Just look at the .tar.bz2 files we also provide: the latter (which compress better than .zip files) are still triple the size of the .7z files.

That means not only wasted space, but also wasted time for me when I make new releases.

Given the workaround below, combined with this reluctance, means that I will close this ticket for now. If you feel strongly about it, please feel free to convince me compelling arguments 😃 .

Also, to enhance on @shiftkey's response:

You can also control the extraction of the archive from the command line:

We use the old .sfx component that used to be hosted on http://7zsfx.info. You can still see the switches in the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20160402074100/http://www.7zsfx.info/en/switches.html. From that information, the best idea would be to use -y -gm2 -InstallPath="C:\\use\\double\\backslashes" (see also this helpful StackOverflow answer: http://stackoverflow.com/a/32105548).

[PhilipOakley]

I have added a wiki page with this detail, and a small link from the FAQ page.

[friism]

Posting link here for others to find: https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/wiki/Zip-Archives---extracting-the-released-archives

... thanks for this, I'll try it out shortly!

[friism]

I'm finding that the self-extractor hangs when invoked from Powershell while doing a windows container docker build:

FROM microsoft/windowsservercore

SHELL ["powershell", "-Command", "$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'; $ProgressPreference = 'SilentlyContinue';"]

ENV GIT_VERSION=2.11.0
RUN Invoke-Webrequest "https://github.com/git-for-windows/git/releases/download/v$Env:GIT_VERSION.windows.1/PortableGit-$Env:GIT_VERSION-64-bit.7z.exe" -UseBasicParsing -OutFile C:\gitsetup.7z.exe
RUN New-Item C:\git -ItemType Directory

RUN Start-Process C:\gitsetup.7z.exe -ArgumentList '-y -gm2 -InstallPath="C:\\git"' -Wait

It works with powershell outside of a container build, and it also works when using cmd.exe

[dscho]

@friism have you tried the NuPkg? A NuPkg is a .zip, after all...