How to pack a Vala application under Windows?

Question

On windows I use Vala via MSYS2. How do I properly package the application so that it can run on another computer(along with Gtk). What and where windows should be placed from MSYS2 dll to exe you can run from anywhere?

Possible duplicate of [How to distribute a GTK+ application on Windows?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/49092784/how-to-distribute-a-gtk-application-on-windows) — Jens Mühlenhoff, Mar 07 '19 at 09:57

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 07 '19 at 10:23

You are using MSYS2 so you could try a three staged approach:

Create a PKGBUILD file and use makepkg-mingw to build a MSYS2 package of your application
Install MSYS2 in a temporary directory and then your application's MSYS2 package, this will resolve the dependencies
Use a tool like msitools or NSIS to create an installer for the files in your temporary directory, msitools plays nicer with installs in a corporate environment, but is not graphical, NSIS provides a GUI interface

Some references:

Building and distributing your application - GTK Windows download page
How to build your GTK+ application on Windows - detailed instructions for building the intermediate MSYS2 package, by Ignacio Casal Quinteiro
What is major difference between MSI and EXE installation files?

How to pack a Vala application under Windows?

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