Skip to content

windows-build.md

Latest commit

 

History

History
96 lines (75 loc) · 4.17 KB

windows-build.md

File metadata and controls

96 lines (75 loc) · 4.17 KB
Raw

Building the AI Notebook Windows installer

The Windows installer is normally produced automatically by the Windows Release GitHub Action on every v* tag (see .github/workflows/windows-release.yml). This document explains how to produce the same AINotebook-vX.Y.Z-windows-setup.exe by hand on a Windows dev box, and the smoke checklist to run before shipping.

v1 installers are unsigned. On first run Windows SmartScreen shows "Windows protected your PC" — click More info → Run anyway. This matches the unsigned macOS DMG (Gatekeeper warning). Authenticode signing is a commented, secret-gated step in the release workflow for when a certificate is available.

Prerequisites (Windows 10/11 x64 dev box)

Step 1 — Self-contained publish

dotnet publish windows/src/AINotebook.App/AINotebook.App.csproj `
  -c Release -r win-x64 --self-contained true `
  -o windows/installer/publish

This yields windows/installer/publish/ containing AINotebook.App.exe, the .NET runtime, the Windows App SDK runtime (self-contained), the WebView2 SDK loader, the bundled editor assets, and the en-US / cs-CZ localization satellites. No .NET runtime needs to be present on the target machine.

Step 2 — Fetch the WebView2 Evergreen bootstrapper

New-Item -ItemType Directory -Force -Path windows/installer/redist | Out-Null
Invoke-WebRequest `
  -Uri 'https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/p/?LinkId=2124703' `
  -OutFile windows/installer/redist/MicrosoftEdgeWebview2Setup.exe

(~2 MB; auto-detects architecture and downloads the matching runtime at install time. The file is gitignored — it is fetched per build.)

Step 3 — Compile the installer

cd windows/installer
$version = Get-Content ../../VERSION   # single source of truth, e.g. 0.7.3
& "C:\Program Files (x86)\Inno Setup 6\ISCC.exe" "/DMyAppVersion=$version" installer.iss

Output: windows/installer/Output/AINotebook-v<version>-windows-setup.exe.

Step 4 — (Optional) sign

If you have a code-signing certificate (.pfx):

& signtool sign /f cert.pfx /p <password> `
  /fd SHA256 /tr http://timestamp.digicert.com /td SHA256 `
  "Output/AINotebook-v$version-windows-setup.exe"

Signing removes the SmartScreen warning (after the cert builds reputation). Skipped for unsigned v1.

Smoke checklist (run on a clean Windows 10 AND Windows 11 VM)

Use a fresh VM (or one with the WebView2 Evergreen runtime uninstalled) so the WebView2 chaining path is actually exercised.

  • Copy AINotebook-vX.Y.Z-windows-setup.exe to the clean VM and run it.
  • UAC prompt appears (admin / per-machine install); accept it.
  • On a box without WebView2: the wizard shows "Installing Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime..." and completes without error.
  • On a box with WebView2 already present: that step is skipped.
  • Files land under C:\Program Files\AI Notebook\ including AINotebook.App.exe.
  • Start-Menu group "AI Notebook" contains the app + uninstall shortcuts, both showing the app icon.
  • "Apps & Features" lists AI Notebook, version X.Y.Z, correct publisher/icon.
  • Post-install "Launch AI Notebook" launches the app.
  • First run shows onboarding (welcome → detect Ollama → pick models → pull models → done). The WebView2-hosted editor renders (proves the WebView2 runtime + bundled editor assets work end-to-end).
  • Quit and relaunch from the Start-Menu shortcut: onboarding does not reappear (hasCompletedOnboarding persisted in LocalSettings).
  • Uninstall via Apps & Features removes C:\Program Files\AI Notebook\ and the Start-Menu shortcuts. (WebView2, being a shared OS runtime, is intentionally left installed.)

If every box is checked on both Win10 and Win11, the installer is ship-ready (unsigned).