New windows binary install instructions

[knmcguire]

Description

• Uses the new preinstall script to make it possible for binary installs for Windows to be unzipped anywhere on a windows system from https://github.com/ros2/ci/pull/817
• Uses command prompt everywhere (to avoid users switching terminals)
• Changes the recommended directory for the binary install to /dev/{distro}
• Fixes link to get the rolling packages
• Various consistency fixes

Fixes #5384 Update: helps with https://github.com/ros2/ros2/issues/1675 if this gets pushed to Jazzy as well.

Did you use Generative AI?

No

Additional Information

This only holds for rolling but a new PR needs to be made to have these changes also for Kilted and Jazzy

Also this all has been tested on Windows 11... time to update the statement Only Windows 10 is supported. ?

[mjcarroll]

time to update the statement Only Windows 10 is supported...?

Yes please!

[knmcguire]

Yes please!

Alright! I'll update it to 11 but let me double check with the infra team what is happening on the CI part (if it is actually being tested on windows 10 or 11 now)

[knmcguire]

Now changed 10 to 11. Not all CI is full windows 11 yet apparently but it is on the way!

[kscottz]

@mjcarroll @knmcguire Do we want to update REP-2000 to reflect Windows 11 support?

I am a bit concerned about removing Windows 10 installation support entirely. What would we think about keeping legacy 10 instructions around for awhile longer? My understanding is that about 30-40% of users have not upgraded to Windows 11 yet. Perhaps a URL to an archived version of the Windows 10 instructions would be a good middle ground.

[mjcarroll]

I am a bit concerned about removing Windows 10 installation support entirely

I think that it should generally be the same process on both Windows 10 and 11.

My understanding is that about 30-40% of users have not upgraded to Windows 11 yet.

Yeah, that's what I saw as well. At the same time, it will become increasingly difficult to maintain any sort of support for an operating system that the vendor itself doesn't support.

[knmcguire]

If the plan is to move all CI and builds to work on windows 11, then it makes sense that we say that we only support windows 11. But yes, especially since we are using pixi, this will also work there. So we can say, Tier 1 support on Windows 11 and Tier 3 for Windows 10?

But this is talking about the actual releases. These new instructions will only work on Kilted and Jazzy now, and not on Humble, so those need to still keep the old Windows 10 instructions with Chocolatey. BUT if full CI is moving towards windows 11... those won't be tested anymore, hence will go against the Tier 1 status of Humble for Windows 10.

By the way, I'm currently in the process of becoming a committer at the infra team, in particular to help out with Windows CI. Perhaps as one of the efforts I can work on some kind of proposal on how to best consolidate Windows CI/REP compatibility/ROS versions and present it?

In any case, this PR is only for Rolling, and since there is a transition process happening, we could explicitly say this? That currently there is a CI and packaging transition ongoing and both Windows 10 and 11 are considered experimental, but we recommend using Windows 11.

[DarkSZChao]

Hi guys, I'm new to this ros2 jazzy system and i'm trying to install on win11. Just wondering, has this feature (customised install dir) been added to the jazzy release (zip file) yet?

[knmcguire]

Hi! This is not yet an PR for jazzy but for rolling documentation only, since there are still things we need to discuss first with the ROS and Infra PMC of what and what not to support. Also, there needs to be an package sync release for jazzy so that the zipfile is in the releases.

However! The script itself is already in the ROS 2 CI repo, and last time I checked this also works for jazzy! https://github.com/ros2/ci/blob/master/windows_docker_resources/preinstall_setup_windows.py

So if you still follow the current jazzy documentation, the only addition is that you download and put that script exactly in that root folder (in /ros2-windows, which is the folder you see after you extracted the content). Then you run it with pixi:

pixi run python preinstall_setup_windows.py

[DarkSZChao]

Thank you so much!! It works!!

[knmcguire]

Reverted the windows 11 notice. This requires a more formal discussion and decision by the ROS PMC, but it's not a requirement for this PR for now.