64-bit windows version?

[Claus Reinke]

>>> > Don't forget .. Mingw has to be installed too .. and in fact
>>> > that is much harder. I tried to install MSYS and gave up.
>>>
>>> You're kidding right?  There's Windows installer .exes for MinGW and
>>> MSYS.  You download it, run it, and click Next a few times.
>> 
>> Its far from that easy! Its loads of steps, and figuring out what to
>> download is quite challenging on its own.
> 
> I had a non trivial problem understanding what parts of which versions of Mingw 
> and/or MSYS I should download to get ghc compiling on windows.  I had to try at 
> least three times before I setup something that works.  And I assert that I am a 
> competent person.  I think their web site seriously under-explains things from 
> an outsider's point of view.  But the user base is made up of programmers, so 
> they obviously are not under pressure to make a clearer site.

so it is probably easier to install that to figure out what to install?

yes, i remember the download site being rather confusing in its
variety of packages and versions on offer, the all-in-one package 
being much older than the individual packages, because one is
meant to install the all-in-one, then update it by installing the
more frequently updated individual packages on top of that. and
then were stable and unstable versions of those individual packages.
or something like that..

personally, i use the cygwin environment, so only needed to
install mingw gcc&co. but it would be nice if one of you
who have figured out what and how to install a minimal 
mingw/msys sufficient for ghc builds could write it up in
a detailed log, similar to the existing one for mingw/cygwin:

http://hackage.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/Building/Windows#AWindowsbuildlogusingCygwin

that would help others in the future, and they can send 
updates to the log when the details change. if you don't
remember all the details, just write up what you remember,
and let others fill in when they are actually doing an install.

[simon: i recall sending a minor update to the cygwin log, 
including where to get darcs, and changing to the current 
mailing list setup; has that disappeared?]

claus