Cleanup the Windows instructions for using conda/pixi.

[clalancette]

This makes the instructions match what CI does in ros2/ci#802 . This relies on ros2/ros2#1642 being merged first.

[github-actions]

HTML artifacts: https://github.com/ros2/ros2_documentation/actions/runs/13567449249/artifacts/2663373185.

To view the resulting site:

1. Click on the above link to download the artifacts archive
2. Extract it
3. Open html-artifacts-4989/index.html in your favorite browser

[j-rivero]

Nice reduction in the number of steps required.

There are some references to chocolatey in the Troubleshooting and Contributing documents:

source/How-To-Guides/Installation-Troubleshooting.rst:We've seen that sometimes the chocolatey packages for ``asio``, ``tinyxml2``, etc. do not add important registry entries and CMake will be unable to find them when building ROS 2.
source/How-To-Guides/Installation-Troubleshooting.rst:We've not yet been able to identify the root cause, but uninstalling the chocolatey packages (with ``-n`` if the uninstall fails the first time), and then reinstalling them will fix the issue.
source/How-To-Guides/Installation-Troubleshooting.rst:- ``choco uninstall patch; colcon build --cmake-clean-cache`` - This is a bug in the `GNU Patch For Windows package <https://chocolatey.org/packages/patch>`_. If this package is not installed, the build process will instead use the version of Patch distributed with git.
source/The-ROS2-Project/Contributing/Windows-Tips-and-Tricks.rst:Unfortunately, the ``patch`` executable as delivered by chocolatey requires Administrator access to run.

Do we need to remove these ones?

[ros-discourse]

This pull request has been mentioned on ROS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.ros.org/t/upcoming-switch-of-windows-installation-to-pixi-conda/41916/1

[sloretz]

This is so much better!

Testing Windows Development Setup on a Windows 11 machine. I'm still waiting for colcon build --merge-install to complete because it's a very slow machine.

I also had to uninstall stuff previously installed for ROS 2. I don't think we need to include this in these pages, but posting in case someone else runs into this.

• choco uninstall all
• Had to manually delete a bunch of system environment variable entries so packages don't try to use uninstalled programs.

[sloretz]

When I first tried this, I got the following error:

irm : The remote name could not be resolved: 'aka.ms'
At line:1 char:1
+ irm https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vs_buildtools.exe -OutFile vs_buildt ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : InvalidOperation: (System.Net.HttpWebRequest
   :HttpWebRequest) [Invoke-RestMethod], WebException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : WebCmdletWebResponseException,Microsoft.Powe
   rShell.Commands.InvokeRestMethodCommand

I resolved this by going to a web browser, typing aka.ms, and logging in to a microsoft account. After that this command worked.

[knmcguire]

I didn't get this issue during my run on windows 11, but perhaps that's due to that I'm already logged into a microsoft account trying this out already. Did you try this with a guest login or a container?

[clalancette]

I resolved this by going to a web browser, typing aka.ms, and logging in to a microsoft account. After that this command worked.

Hm, that step really should not be required. I am not logged in to anything on my Windows VM, and I am able to run this command as-is. Can you try again? Maybe even also try downloading on linux with "wget"?

[sloretz]

Suggested change

vs_buildtools_2019.exe --quiet --wait --norestart --add Microsoft.Component.MSBuild --add Microsoft.Net.Component.4.6.1.TargetingPack --add Microsoft.Net.Component.4.8.SDK --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.CoreBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Roslyn.Compiler --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TextTemplating --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CLI.Support --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreIde --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Redist.14.Latest --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.x86.x64 --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.19041 --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.NativeDesktop.Core --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.MSBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools

.\vs_buildtools_2019.exe --quiet --wait --norestart --add Microsoft.Component.MSBuild --add Microsoft.Net.Component.4.6.1.TargetingPack --add Microsoft.Net.Component.4.8.SDK --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.CoreBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Roslyn.Compiler --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TextTemplating --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CLI.Support --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreIde --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Redist.14.Latest --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.x86.x64 --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.19041 --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.NativeDesktop.Core --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.MSBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools

Need to start command with .\ or else I get the following error:

PS C:\Users\slore> vs_buildtools_2019.exe --quiet --wait --norestart --add Microsoft.Component.MSBuild --add Microsoft.Net.Component.4.6.1.TargetingPack --add Microsoft.Net.Component.4.8.SDK --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.CoreBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Roslyn.Compiler --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.TextTemplating --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CLI.Support --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.CoreIde --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Redist.14.Latest --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.VC.Tools.x86.x64 --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Component.Windows10SDK.19041 --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.ComponentGroup.NativeDesktop.Core --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.MSBuildTools --add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools
vs_buildtools_2019.exe : The term 'vs_buildtools_2019.exe' is not
recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable
program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify
that the path is correct and try again.
At line:1 char:1
+ vs_buildtools_2019.exe --quiet --wait --norestart --add Microsoft.Com ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (vs_buildtools_2019.exe:Stri
   ng) [], CommandNotFoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException
 
 
Suggestion [3,General]: The command vs_buildtools_2019.exe was not found, but does exist in the current location. Windows PowerShell does not load commands from the current location by default. If you trust this command, instead type: ".\vs_buildtools_2019.exe". See "get-help about_Command_Precedence" for more details.

[sloretz]

I had to close and reopen powershell before this command worked. I think it's necessary because pixi isn't on PATH in the current shell after installing it.

PS C:\dev> pixi install
pixi : The term 'pixi' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet,
function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the
name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try
again.
At line:1 char:1
+ pixi install
+ ~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : ObjectNotFound: (pixi:String) [], CommandNot
   FoundException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

[clalancette]

Ah yeah, good point. I'll add in an instruction to reopen.

[ahcorde]

I'm not pretty sure about the --quiet flag, I was expecting something when I executed the command, a window or something but the command just returned without a message. Removing this flag I was able to see a wizard running.

[clalancette]

Yeah, these instructions are directly copied out of the Dockerfile. I agree that this isn't great, but even if we remove --quiet, a lot of stuff happens kind of "behind the scenes" that is not obvious. My take on this is that we leave this as-is, but add a note saying that this will take a while and not print anything.

[ahcorde]

These instructions are working on cmd.exe but in some parts of the documentation we are also adding instructions for PowerShell. Does it make sense to add them here ?

[mjcarroll]

Worth noting that on Windows 11, I needed to make sure that the execution policy was set correctly:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser

[knmcguire]

Just mind that the Set-ExecutionPolicy is a powershell only command. This is not necessary in the command prompt as mentioned that the user should open in the instructions.

But yes it is a bit confusing to switch terminals half way...

[clalancette]

Since I don't have Windows 11 installed: is the Set-ExecutionPolicy needed to install MSVC, to install pixi itself, to run pixi install, or to use pixi shell (or all of them)? That will determine where we end up putting this command.

[knmcguire]

Hi! Probably there are too many 'captains' (reviewers) on this ship, but my curiosity got the better of me and tried these instructions out anyway😄

I found a couple of more issues with the instructions of the source build which I've added, I couldn't test out the binary build since the right zip aren't available yet.

[knmcguire]

On Window 11 (version 10.0.26100) I got a permission error. I had to go to C:/Users/[USER]/downloads and download the vsbuildstool there (and run it with .\ as @sloretz already mentioned below.)

irm : Access to the path 'C:\vs_buildtools_2019.exe' is denied.
At line:1 char:1
+ irm https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vs_buildtools.exe -OutFile vs_buildt ...
+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    + CategoryInfo          : NotSpecified: (:) [Invoke-RestMethod], Unaut
   horizedAccessException
    + FullyQualifiedErrorId : System.UnauthorizedAccessException,Microsoft
   .PowerShell.Commands.InvokeRestMethodCommand

[knmcguire]

This is most likely due to that powershell was not run with administrator access. Either that needs to be added to the instructions, or the user account of the computer needs to get full control

[knmcguire]

Just mind that the Set-ExecutionPolicy is a powershell only command. This is not necessary in the command prompt as mentioned that the user should open in the instructions.

But yes it is a bit confusing to switch terminals half way...

[knmcguire]

I didn't get this issue during my run on windows 11, but perhaps that's due to that I'm already logged into a microsoft account trying this out already. Did you try this with a guest login or a container?

[clalancette]

These instructions are working on cmd.exe but in some parts of the documentation we are also adding instructions for PowerShell. Does it make sense to add them here ?

But yes it is a bit confusing to switch terminals half way...

I don't disagree with these sentiments. These instructions were originally written to more-or-less directly mimic what the Dockerfile does in ros2/ci#802 . In that PR, we use powershell to do some of the setup, cmd to do some of the other setup, and then cmd again to actually run the build and test. While we could probably change that code to use powershell everywhere, that is going to require a lot more validation. I'm not going to have time to do that.

So we need to decide: is it better to more closely follow the CI instructions, or is it better to have a "consistent" powershell experience in the user instructions? Thoughts?

[knmcguire]

For this PR, following the CI instructions should be fine. It's already such an improvement to what it was before, so anything that will just enhance that (like making it PowerShell consistent), can be in a separate PR after this one.