[cvsnt] newbie asks 2.5.03 upgrade consequences

[Bo Berglund]

On Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:03:15 +0000, Tony Hoyle
<tony.hoyle at march-hare.local> wrote:

>Bo Berglund wrote:
>
>> I have seen the registry key where you can change this, but I did not
>> dare to do it in case I would break already installed applications...
>> If I do change the setting I guess that future installs will be
>> directed there, will it not affect the existing system?
>> 
>
>There are apps that will handle this... at least as far as the registry 
>goes (I think they just search for 'Program Files' in the keys and 
>change them all).
>
>Personally I wouldn't want to try it except on a brand new install of 
>windows.

I did a scan of the registry for 'programfiles' and I found tons of
registry data of the type:
InstallPath = %programfiles%\App_path\App.exe

This obviously will totally break if someone (like me) changed the
ProgramFilesDir entries (there are several places).

Anyway I did this to C:\Programs on my W2003 test server to see what
would happen.
Then I installed build 2382 and I did not change the install path
suggested. Result: It installed where I wanted it to go
(c:\Programs\CVSNT) :-)

But what was very strange and a consequence of the stupid registry
entries:
The Internet Explorer shortcut did not work any longer, it displayed a
generic icon instead of the blue e that it usually shows....
Then I changed ProgramFilesDir back to C:\Program Files and then the
shortcut started to look right again.

Sigh,
even Microsoft can't get these things right! One would imagine that
they have these registry entries prepared for expansion at
write/install time depening on locale, but apparently they are stupid
enough to let them expand at use time thereby making them erroneous.

HTH

/Bo
(Bo Berglund, developer in Sweden)