Update start menu shortcuts on pacman -Syu

[stertingen]

Not sure if this is the right place to suggest this.

Over time, new MSYS profiles are created or updated.
The start menu shortcuts should be updated accordingly when using pacman -Syu.

For example, I have the profiles clang32, clang64, clangarm64, mingw32, mingw64, msys2 and ucrt64 in my installation directory.
In my start menu, there is only mingw32, mingw64, msys2 and ucrt64; these are the profiles from 2021.

[Biswa96]

pacman itself does not and probably should not add files outside of msys2 installation. The shortcuts are installed by the msys2 installer at first install time. You can manually create and add shortcuts in Start Menu.

[stertingen]

I see. Could the installer provide an option to update the affected on an existing installation?

Currently, the installer does not proceed when there is already an installation at C:\msys64, which also probably generates an error when updating MSYS using winget update msys2.msys2 (winget finds a new available version for MSYS but cannot update it).

Another approach could be to let the installer update the installed version number and start menu shortcuts while leaving the MSYS packages to pacman. I'm not sure how this would affect user experience and update expectations; users updating via the installer could expect updates of the MSYS packages as well, so in that case the installer should emit a warning that the packages need to be updated separately.

[Biswa96]

Could the installer provide an option to update the affected on an existing installation?

I am not sure about that kind of feature. Others may help with that.

Basically, users do not need to reinstall msys2 when a new installer is released. Only packages need to be updated with pacman. But I agree with your views.