erlang/otp

Windows installer without admin privileges

mardukbp opened this issue · 0 comments

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

At universities and in enterprise environments users do not usually have admin privileges. As a result a lot of people are left out of the BEAM ecosystem. Since Java, Python and .NET can be installed without admin privileges, they are used instead of e.g. Elixir.

Personally, I would like to introduce my clients and colleagues to Elixir, but installing Erlang is an obstacle.

Describe the solution you'd like

An Erlang installer for Windows that does not require admin privileges.

Describe alternatives you've considered

The Livebook installer can be used to install Erlang. However, it requires admin privileges because it starts the installer for the Visual C++ Redistributable, which provides the vcruntime140.dll required by erl.exe.

Additional context

The Windows image of GH actions includes VS 2022 with the Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Redist.14.Latest component. One can write a script that copies the DLL from it.

Of course, there could be other reasons why the Erlang installer needs admin rights, that I am not aware of.