Need documentation for Electron installation on Windows

[disquisitioner]

Installing Electron on Windows is a real test of determination and luck. I presume someone has recently done a successful clean install so it would be great if they would document the process to help out those of us dealing with it for the first time. At the moment I have a page full of error messages and am not inclined to delve deeper into finding and installing old Microsoft development tool components so will just stick to using Electron on Mac OS.

Electron uses node-gyp, which depends on Python 2.7 and Visual Studio 2010. Setting up Python on Windows 7 is not difficult, but node-gyp depends on an old Visual C++ component (VCBuild.exe) that has subsequently been replaced by Microsoft in later versions (MSBuild.exe). The node-gyp wiki spells out a four part remove/install process including Visual Studio 2010, Windows SDK 7.1, then a Visual Studio 2010 service pack, then a Visual C++ compiler update for the Windows SDK 7.1 you just installed. Oh, and the Microsoft web site says that you need to register Visual Studio to use it longer than 30 days.

There's some discussion on StackOverflow that Visual Studio 2013 can be used instead, but it isn't clear whether that simplifies the process or not.

I realize Windows is a very unfriendly platform for open development, but wow...

[wturyn]

The node-gyp module is a dependency of serialport module.

Serialport readme section about windows installation states:

Windows:

• Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 are supported.
• Install Visual Studio Express 2013 for Windows Desktop.
• If you are hacking on an Arduino, be sure to install the drivers.
• Install node.js 0.10.x matching the bitness (32 or 64) of your operating system.
• Install Python 2.7.6 matching the bitness of your operating system. For any questions, please refer to their FAQ. Default settings are perfect.
• Open the 'Visual Studio Command Prompt' and add Python to the path.

[disquisitioner]

Thanks! So would I follow the Serialport installation notes and not the node-gyp ones?

Even so, Visual Studio Express is a 4Gb download (after registering an account with Microsoft). Not really a good alternative experience to using the Arduino IDE on Windows, though I know we're early in the development phase on Electron so that's not a fair comparison. I think I'll just stick to working with Electron on Mac OS, thanks, and wait until we get further and have an installable (and compact) binary image on Windows.

[joshmarinacci]

I don't think we'll ever be able to have a slender code install on Windows because of the need for MS's big compiler blob (though on Mac you need XCode as well, I think). Eventually all of that will be precompiled and stuffed inside an MSI installer. Mark this down for a 1.0 feature.