Windows installation steps are difficult

[mxxo]

Somewhat related to #5, the Windows installation steps are a bit tricky to follow, especially for less-technical users. Is it worth having a standalone windows setup page? There are lots of instructions that might fall through the cracks with a bunch of separate pages (no spaces in paths etc).

[bellenot]

Somewhat related to #5, the Windows installation steps are a bit tricky to follow, especially for less-technical users. Is it worth having a standalone windows setup page? There are lots of instructions that might fall through the cracks with a bunch of separate pages (no spaces in paths etc).

@mxxo I think the issue is not really installing ROOT (e.g. running root_v6.20.06.win32.vc16.exe, or unzip root_v6.20.06.win32.vc16.zip... ), but maybe installing Visual Studio? Running from the command prompt? Or did I miss something?

[mxxo]

For this issue, I was trying to put myself in the shoes of a potential Windows user, told to download ROOT by a supervisor, etc.

Go to root website -> Hit big Install Now button (✨ awesome 💯 ) and lands on /install

Potential issue
There is no Windows subsection in the Table of Contents.

User has to start reading, realize they want the pre-compiled binary distribution and may be required to install dependencies.

(User: what is a precompiled binary distribution? I just want a program I can run without thinking).

Potential issue
The first link to click is the stable ROOT release (i.e. 6.20/04). This is a trap.
If they click this link without having installed dependencies, their installation won't work and all the following steps are for naught.

Say the user has all the right dependencies, then they click and are brought to this page.

The first link is a source code tarball. This is almost certainly not what people want when they land here.

Instead, the user reads the table of contents, finds a Windows section at the very end of the page and heads there.

Is Windows 10 supported?
Users are very likely to skip the important notes at the end of the Windows section (they won't apply to me, surely the download will work). We can try and make more people read them if they come first.

There are no download links in the windows section. Instead, the user has to scroll back up to the binary distribution section, find the Windows link and pick one of the four. (Do we know how many people use the zip folder option on windows?)

This is in addition to having to to download the dependencies (small nit, why not take users right to the download page? https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/downloads/)

I think as a whole, it is very difficult to follow the instructions correctly the first time. I think we should try and optimize for the least-common-denominator use case. A set of straight-line instructions to get the stable release version of ROOT working.