Update maintainer kb windows doc

[mfisher87]

PR Checklist:

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I went through the process of testing on Windows today, and as a non-Windows user I felt these changes would have helped me! A little bit of information was out-of-date.

[mfisher87]

/home/runner/work/conda-forge.github.io/conda-forge.github.io/src/maintainer/knowledge_base.rst:: ERROR: Anonymous hyperlink mismatch: 2 references but 0 targets.

Not sure right now what's causing this! A line number would be nice. 🤔

EDIT: missing space before < in hyperlinks was the cause.

[jaimergp]

LGTM!

I'll leave it open for the weekend in case some else from @conda-forge/core wants to add something (e.g. wrt the Python 3.11 / Visual C++ version topic). Maybe @h-vetinari knows something too? 🙏

Otherwise I'll merge on Monday!

[jaimergp]

LGTM!

I'll leave it open for the weekend in case some else from @conda-forge/core wants to add something (e.g. wrt the Python 3.11 / Visual C++ version topic). Maybe @h-vetinari knows something too? 🙏

Otherwise I'll merge on Monday!

[h-vetinari]

Maybe @h-vetinari knows something too? 🙏

Thanks for the ping, left some small comments/observations.

[jaimergp]

Thanks for the updates @mfisher87! A couple more comments and we are good to go from my side!

[mfisher87]

Thanks @jaimergp! I think I got everything :)

I'm a little confused though about this link you shared. Should these docs show an example of what arm64 support should look like as well? e.g.:

  - vs2019                     # [win and x86_64]
  - vs2022                     # [win and arm64]

I don't really understand why we'd want to compile with vs2019 for x86. Why not vs2022 for both arm64 and x86_64 platforms? I know very little about the Windows world :)

[jaimergp]

Should these docs show an example of what arm64 support should look like as well? e.g.:

  - vs2019                     # [win and x86_64]
  - vs2022                     # [win and arm64]

I don't really understand why we'd want to compile with vs2019 for x86. Why not vs2022 for both arm64 and x86_64 platforms? I know very little about the Windows world :)

I don't know much either 😬 Maybe conda-forge will upgrade to v2022 generally in the future, but for now that's the status quo and that's what we should document.

Support for arm64 is still being worked on so I don't think we need to cover it yet (specially because there are no other options available; you just get vs2022, technically speaking.).

[mfisher87]

Maybe conda-forge will upgrade to v2022 generally in the future, but for now that's the status quo and that's what we should document.

I'm even more confused :) I'm having a slow-brain morning I guess! How does that affect this PR which is changing the docs from recommending vs2019 to vs2022?

[h-vetinari]

I don't really understand why we'd want to compile with vs2019 for x86. Why not vs2022 for both arm64 and x86_64 platforms? I know very little about the Windows world :)

I don't know much either 😬 Maybe conda-forge will upgrade to v2022 generally in the future, but for now that's the status quo and that's what we should document.

On windows, the compilers come as an integrated toolchain (not separate components like on unix). Updating the toolchain requires everyone who wants to compile against conda-forge windows artefacts to also upgrade their toolchain. It's a bit hard to quantify because it doesn't affect users just downloading conda packages, but we've been conservative about this (FWIW, I wanted to upgrade faster from vs2017 to vs2019, but there was opposition. Eventually it lead to #1732, which explains the situation more in-depth).

That's the baseline. However, win-arm64 is (effectively) a brand-new platform, so there's no-one relying on conda-forge win-arm64 artefacts of any kind yet, and we need the newer toolchain because arm64-support is still being ramped up (and vs2019 likely not good enough).

So now we have to split the toolchain version per architecture, until such time when all of conda-forge moves to vs2022, then they can move in sync from then on.

I left a change request related to this.

[jaimergp]

Thanks @h-vetinari! I think this is good to go now then!

[h-vetinari]

There's still some heavily outdated stuff in the "Building for different VC versions" section, but we can tackle that in a separate PR IMO, because it might need more work/discussion, and I don't want to hold up this PR.

Thanks for the PR & the patience!

[mfisher87]

Thanks for the PR & the patience!

Any time, thanks for being welcoming :)