exe Setup for Luanti 5.10.0 (64 & 32 bit) [windows]

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TheGhostZz
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exe Setup for Luanti 5.10.0 (64 & 32 bit) [windows]

by TheGhostZz » Post

Back story

i have recently came across a post of someone else that made an installer for minetest, the post is around 5 yeras old now, so since the last version published by the person on the post is outdated i decided to make my own version of it.
ATTENTION
Please keep in mind this is an exe installer that is not digitally signed, if windows gives you any security error don't worry about it, the file is 100% safe.
Tested on windows 10 and windows 11, May work on older versions but i didn't try it

Features:

  • You can chose any installation path (default is C:\Program Files (x86)\Luanti v5.10)
  • Automatically creates a Desktop shortcut
  • Includes the Uninstaller avaliable from the Control Panel (Doesn't remove the user files stored at %appdata%\minetest)
  • Doesn't need to be run as an Administrator

Download LATEST:


Last edited by TheGhostZz on Mon Feb 03, 2025 10:51, edited 6 times in total.

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ROllerozxa
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Re: exe installer for Luanti 5.10.0 (64 bit) [windows]

by ROllerozxa » Post

Well this is sure a disaster. Instead of using a proper installer framework such as NSIS you've used the free version of Clickteam Fusion's installer creator thing. It is so ancient that it does not even understand Windows' UAC system so you need to manually run it as administrator or else the path it selects by default is invalid, which is not really a good sign.

There is also a bunch of junk bundled with the installer such as cache, pre-installed content such as MTG and your config. You need to keep a clean environment when you're building the installer so your own user data doesn't get included. The engine also fails to actually write any user data since you created an installer out of a RUN_IN_PLACE=1 build, which is why it crashes on startup after installing. Telling people to run Luanti as administrator to fix this is not okay, you should instead use a RUN_IN_PLACE=0 build that stores user data separate to the engine data. This would also not make it get deleted on uninstall, but it seems that the uninstall program included does not work anyways so that's a relief.

If anyone wants some better Windows builds than the official RUN_IN_PLACE=1 ones, then there are my RUN_IN_PLACE=0 Windows builds. While they are not distributed as installers, they are built to store user data separate to the engine data which creates a separation that makes updating to newer versions of the engine much simpler. If there is demand for a proper installer I could make NSIS installers out of my builds, or maybe you could do that.
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TheGhostZz
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Re: exe installer for Luanti 5.10.0 (64 bit) [windows]

by TheGhostZz » Post

look this is my first time doing this, i'll make it better, i plan to fix this problem, you can consider this file AN ALPHA build lol i appreciate the comment and the Critics

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Re: exe installer for Luanti 5.10.0 (64 bit) [windows]

by TheGhostZz » Post

ROllerozxa wrote:
Sun Feb 02, 2025 16:04
Well this is sure a disaster. Instead of using a proper installer framework such as NSIS you've used the free version of Clickteam Fusion's installer creator thing. It is so ancient that it does not even understand Windows' UAC system so you need to manually run it as administrator or else the path it selects by default is invalid, which is not really a good sign.

There is also a bunch of junk bundled with the installer such as cache, pre-installed content such as MTG and your config. You need to keep a clean environment when you're building the installer so your own user data doesn't get included. The engine also fails to actually write any user data since you created an installer out of a RUN_IN_PLACE=1 build, which is why it crashes on startup after installing. Telling people to run Luanti as administrator to fix this is not okay, you should instead use a RUN_IN_PLACE=0 build that stores user data separate to the engine data. This would also not make it get deleted on uninstall, but it seems that the uninstall program included does not work anyways so that's a relief.

If anyone wants some better Windows builds than the official RUN_IN_PLACE=1 ones, then there are my RUN_IN_PLACE=0 Windows builds. While they are not distributed as installers, they are built to store user data separate to the engine data which creates a separation that makes updating to newer versions of the engine much simpler. If there is demand for a proper installer I could make NSIS installers out of my builds, or maybe you could do that.
From my understanding the major problem would be the run in place variable? so where and how do i change it? also i tried downloading nsis but i am not an experienced programmer, i don't have any idea of where to start to be honest nor i know how to compile stuff on my own (yet)... there is a lot of room for improvement for me, i know how to use powershell scripts and i thought of using them to make the game update itself in a semi-automatic manner in the future, however i might not do that, i will see if i can improve.
Also minetest the game was left installed on purpose, i forgot to remove my config anyway, i did remove my username and my worlds
thank you again for the reply

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Blockhead
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Re: exe installer for Luanti 5.10.0 (64 bit) [windows]

by Blockhead » Post

TheGhostZz wrote:
Sun Feb 02, 2025 18:54
From my understanding the major problem would be the run in place variable? so where and how do i change it? also i tried downloading nsis but i am not an experienced programmer, i don't have any idea of where to start to be honest nor i know how to compile stuff on my own (yet)...
Well there we have the crux of the issue: RUN_IN_PLACE is a compile-time variable that you choose with CMake when you build from source, so if you're just trying to repackage the official Luanti zip file into an installer, it's not going to work, unless you do something bizarre like modifying the .exe file, which you shouldn't.
TheGhostZz wrote:
Sun Feb 02, 2025 18:54
there is a lot of room for improvement for me, i know how to use powershell scripts and i thought of using them to make the game update itself in a semi-automatic manner in the future, however i might not do that, i will see if i can improve.
You should benefit greatly by downloading the source via git from luanti-org/luanti, (or here is a direct download for 5.10). Then navigate to doc\compiling and start reading the documentation on how to compile on Windows. It's been a while since I was doing that, but CMake has a GUI for changing project variables also. That's where you set RUN_IN_PLACE to False.

You could do version checking. Actually, the engine has a built-in check against https://www.minetest.net/release_info.json - see the setting "Update information URL" under Client and Server. So you don't need to do the checking per se, just.. you could modify it a bit so that instead of offering to download from luanti.org it goes to your server/GitHub repo/this thread. The code lives in \builtin - that can be modified without recompiling, but I recommend you just use a git workflow where you rebase on top of stable-5 every time that moves anyway.
TheGhostZz wrote:
Sun Feb 02, 2025 18:54
Also minetest the game was left installed on purpose
It's fine to leave it in but just make it explicit that you're doing that which is different from the usual policy of Luanti to not include a game any more - the idea is to encourage players to choose a game they'll like, not stumble when they launch MTG and think "wow this is like Minecraft alpha, this Minetest/Luanti thing sucks".
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Re: exe installer for Luanti 5.10.0 (64 bit) [windows]

by TheGhostZz » Post

First of all


Thank you for replying and for the better explanation of things, later on i will edit the forum post since i already made an "improved" version of the setup this time the game DOES NOT include a pre installed minetest, everything is left stock. i am using the version of the game compiled by ROllerozxa that has already the RUN_IN_PLACE = 0 i have extracted the folder and embedded it in the setup, this time i figured out a way so that the installer NO LONGER needs to be run as an admin, nor does the game or the uninstaller, i tested it personally on my computer, on my second computer with windows 10 and my friend with windows 11 tried it too and it is also working for him, the only issue as of now is windows defender keeps giving a false positive on the setup file, i am assuming it's because i didn't digitally sign it as i need to figure that part out.

i have made sure that the uninstaller works properly, the uninstaller deletes the Luanti Folder but not the user data stored at %AppData%\Minetest so if the user needs to update to a newer version they can just overwrite files or uninstall and then install the update

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