Re: [Mingw-users] Rolling back to a previous MinGW installation

[Keith M. <kei...@us...>]

On 27/02/13 21:53, Rex Dog wrote:
> 1. I have found two sysroot-*.xml I assume both are required?

Yes.  One of them records the mingw32 packages you've installed, the 
other the MSYS packages.

> 2. I have noticed quite a few of the entries include a remove request.

Ignore that.  It's a piece of internal bookkeeping for a pre-removal 
dependency check, which isn't fully implemented yet; its presence is 
completely benign.

> Does this mean the sysroot files are an incremental list of changes
> applied during the last upgrade or do they contain an absolute list
> of the packages I have installed?

They represent a complete cumulative record of all packages mingw-get 
knows to be installed, at the time when they were last updated.  They 
are complemented by a manifest-*.xml file per package, identifying all 
of the files installed from the respective package, (and used during a 
"mingw-get remove" operation on the package, to tell mingw-get which 
files need to be removed).

> 3. Is there an automated way to reinstall / upgrade all my packages
> give the sysroot files, or do I have to manually read and install
> each package?

If you still have a backup image of the entire content of the 
$MINGW_ROOT/var/lib/mingw-get/data directory from the time your 
installation became damaged, and can restore to that state, then you may 
get fairly close, by running:

   mingw-get upgrade --reinstall

without specifying any package names, and *without* first running 
"mingw-get update".  This will reinstall all of the packages you had 
previously installed, but they will all be upgraded to the most recent 
version recorded as available within in that restored catalogue image; 
if any of those you had previously installed were at an earlier version 
point, then you may still need to roll some back to earlier releases, 
individually.  (Sorry, but there is no anonymous capability with 
"mingw-get install").

-- 
Regards,
Keith.