Re: Issue 1948 in lilypond: Windows install clobbered system PATH

[-Eluze]

lilypond-4 wrote:
> 
> 
> Comment #12 on issue 1948 by address@hidden: Windows install  
> clobbered system PATH
> http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1948
> 
> I've spent quite a while looking at this today, and can report the  
> following strange stuff.
> 
> When lily is installed, the installer writes the path to the binary to
> this  
> registry key:
> 
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session  
> Manager\Environment\Path
> 
> which is indeed where windows stores the DOS PATH variable.  If you do  
> Control Panel... System... Advanced System Settings... Environment  
> Variables you should see tae new value in the path env. variable. 
> However,  
> for some bizarre reason running a DOS box doesn't return that value - it  
> returns the old one.  You need to reboot to get Lilypond into the DOS box  
> path variable.
> 
my understanding is you have to start a new "box" - if you're already in a
box and change a value the way you describe above it will not be updated in
this box. no need to reboot, just close and restart a new box (it's not
enough to open a new box with cmd from that box!)


> My experience is that this kind of behavior is also  
> replicated in the way Lily adds its path to the path statement - if you  
> rarely reboot (like me) but install lily often (like me) you get a
> mishmash  
> of lilypond path statements in the DOS path.
> 
yea - they dozed off the chance to make clear how long a system path may be
and how it will be handled when the limit is reached.


> Anyway, I've also been installing and uninstalling like mad, and the other  
> notable fact is that unistalling does not get rid of any registry changes  
> installing created.  It seems to me that this is the real bug - users
> can't  
> expect to run path statements that are grossly long and have lily avoid
> the  
> DOS problem of truncating them.  However, if you install lots of versions  
> of lily, it should keep adding to the path - our routine should be to tell  
> users to uninstall the old version and install the new and then the major  
> problem with go away.
> 
i've never seen Lilypond removing an entry from the path!

my procedure is to rename an old version to LilypondVersionNr and install
the new version into the usual path c:\…\…\Lilypond which is where
lilypond.exe is searched for. (to use another version i have to call it with
the full path x:\blabla\…\lilypond.exe)

to keep my path "clean" i use utilities like path commander (this didn't
work anymore with wSeven64) path editor (this also detects double entries
and cleans them) or others - this not only shortens the 5 steps to get to
the window where to edit the variable but the elements of the path-variable
are nicely aligned + easy to handle

i'm sure it would be nice to have a "clean" solution where the installer
tells you he can not add a new item to the path. if installers cannot handle
the numerous windows platforms with totally different capacities a short
message should inform the users what to do.

Eluze
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