[Zero-install-devel] Console output on Windows

[Bastian E. <ba...@ei...>]

A short summary of the Windows console application dilemma:

Basically, Windows has two different types of applications:

Console applications:
These apps have the default streams (stdin, stdout, stderr). These streams
can be redirected but no matter what you do with them, Windows always forces
you to have a Terminal window to go with the app, even if it is unused.
Console applications can display GUI windows in addition to using the
standard streams.
python.exe is an example for such an application.

GUI applications:
These apps have no default streams. They can never output to the console and
therefore don't come with a forced Terminal window. They can only display
GUI windows.
pythonw.exe is an example for such an application.

In my opinion this separation really sucks, especially since it can't be
decided at runtime which of the two your app will be. Can't change anything
about it though.

I hope this clears up why I've been talking about this separation of
0launch.exe and 0launchw.exe.