Extend azure.free_disk_space to Windows as well

[jakirkham]

In addition to Linux, enable azure.free_disk_space on Windows. This helps free up some space in cases where it is needed. Also it can fix build issues where a system Python is accidentally pulled into builds causing hard to diagnose issues.

Also switch Miniforge downloads to use PowerShell. This removes the reliance on the system Python for this step (making the aforementioned cleanup possibly). Additionally it slims the step down a bit and makes it a bit easier to parse.

---

Checklist

• Added a news entry

[h-vetinari]

👍

Xref #1949, which also contains a work-around.

[jakirkham]

Thanks Axel! 🙏

Was finding the deletion time on Azure to be pretty slow. Tried every trick I could think of with robocopy

If you know of better ways to delete on Windows, please let me know

Agree changing the build directory path is worth considering

[h-vetinari]

We probably need to guard this on CONDA_BLD_PATH somehow? I don't think it makes sense to spend time cleaning up C:\ if the build then happens in D:\ by default

conda-smithy/conda_smithy/schema.py

Line 226 in 058670d

"CONDA_BLD_PATH": "D:\\\\bld\\\\",

Speaking of D:\, I'm not sure there'd even be anything to clean up there? So I guess we'd have a three-stage ladder of escalating options, each taking more time but providing more disk space:

• default (build on D:\; fastest, least space)
• switch CONDA_BLD_PATH to C:\ (slower, more space)
• also set azure.free_disk_space (slowest, most space)

[jakirkham]

Agreed

We may also want to put this under another option like azure.free_disk_space: win so that doing true doesn't add this (similar to the docker option on Linux)