Re: LilyPond Windows installer entirely erases the PATH environmentvariable

[Phil Holmes]

"Colin Campbell" <address@hidden> wrote in message 
news:address@hidden
> On 11-05-07 07:38 PM, Zachary Northrup wrote:
> > I recently installed LilyPond for Windows and soon after noticed that a 
> > ton of
> > development tools stopped working. I then discovered that LilyPond's 
> > Windows
> > installer had completely erased my PATH environment variable and replaced 
> > it
> > with the LilyPond path. Thankfully for me, Windows keeps environment 
> > variables
> > in the backup system control set in the registry, so I was able to find 
> > the old
> > variable and replace it myself.
> >
> > I then reinstalled LilyPond to verofy that it was, in fact, LilyPond's
> > installation that caused the variable corruption, and it was.
> >
> > This is a *serious* corruption of the user environment. The LilyPond for 
> > Windows
> > installer should be rescinded immediately to prevent further data loss. I 
> > also
> > note that the installer never once asked the user whether they even 
> > wanted the
> > PATH variable modified. As a best practice, it should default to /not/ 
> > modifying
> > the variables, unless the user asks for it.
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
>
> I'm about to log this as an issue, Zachary, but would you let me know what 
> version of of LilyPond you are installing, as well as what version of 
> Windows, and whether you are running as an administrator or as a regular 
> user, please?


I have installed LilyPond 10s of times on my Windows machine and have seen 
this behaviour once.  However, I don't believe it was strictly Lilypond's 
fault.  I think it happens when the PATH variable exceeds the maximum 
allowable, and it seems that Windows just uses the value that is added, 
rather than the original. On my system it happened because of the number of 
times I have a lilypond path in the PATH, but my guess is that the OP has a 
very long PATH statement to start with.

Could the OP say whether he typed the PATH statement for his dev tools in by 
hand, or did they modify PATH automatically?

--
Phil Holmes
Bug Squad