Option to Disable Combined NSIS Installer When Building for Multiple Architectures

[PeterDaveHello]

• Electron-Builder Version: 24.13.3
• Node Version: v18.20.3
• Electron Version: 31.1.0
• Electron Type (current, beta, nightly): current
• Target: nsis installer, arch: ia32, x64 on Windows 11

When building for both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, Electron Builder creates separate installers for each architecture as well as a combined installer. Is there an option to disable the creation of this combined installer?

Currently, I can't find a way on the doc(https://www.electron.build/configuration/nsis#32-bit-64-bit) to only generate the separate 32-bit and 64-bit installers without also producing the combined one. It would be helpful to have an option like nsis.disableCombinedInstaller: true or nsis.enableCombinedInstaller: false to prevent the creation of the combined installer when it's not needed.

Thank you for your assistance.

[PeterDaveHello]

It seems this feature doesn't just work on 32-bit(x86/ia32) + 64-bit(amd64), as the doc mentioned, but also on arm64+amd64, arm64+amd64+ia32, and maybe other combinations.

These are the screenshots from using 7-zip to open the $PLUGINSDIR\ folder in the NSIS installers in different combinations:

[mmaietta]

So I must admit I don't have the original insight as to why the installers are always combined. I had a project in the past where it was required to have two distinct installers, one for each bitness, though and I implemented an electron-builder script using the programmatic API. I think it looked something akin to the code below (just make sure your artifact name uses the {arch} macro so that the second build command doesn't overwrite the artifact of the first one.) https://www.electron.build/api/programmatic-usage

await builder.build({
  targets: platform.createTarget("nsis", 'x64')
  config: options
})
await builder.build({
  targets: platform.createTarget("nsis", 'ia32')
  config: options
})

[PeterDaveHello]

Sure we can do it by different approach like using command line to build them separately, but a simple option would be also nice 😄

[mmaietta]

Can you share your electron-builder config?

Try this win config for your electron-builder configuration. I was able to build separate installers for x64 and arm64 in this manner.

win: {
        target: [
            {
                target: 'nsis',
                arch: 'x64'
            },
            {
                target: 'nsis',
                arch: 'arm64'
            }
        ],  
}