Warp wrote:
> Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
>> It's an attempt to solve vista issues.
> 
>   Is the problem that a program cannot write anything in its own
> installation directory anymore in Vista? Having to program for Windows
> I have encountered this problem.

I honestly don't know the full cause, I've not seen the problem myself. I
do know that the commonly-suggested solution is to migrate legacy setting
files to the registry, so that's been my approach. If that solves things,
then I'm quite happy to attempt to "back up", as it were, and see where
things start to break again. (In other words, I'd rather solve it sooner
than later, which gives me the leeway to start experimenting with what
Vista will allow without having to be concerned that Vista users still
can't use the program).

>   The "right" solution for Vista-compatible programs is to write things
> in a subdirectory inside the user settings directory. If I'm not mistaken,
> there's an API function which returns this directory. (I don't really know
> because the library I'm using does this for me. I can check how it does it
> if you want, as I have access to the source code of said library.)

Thanks, no need - I already do this. The tools INI file is already expected
to be in the new location <userdir>\Application Data\POV-Ray for Windows.
Later on, the include files and other renderer files such as INI files will
move there too. (I will allow for the include files to be in both places,
but the installer will set up a local set in case the user wants to edit them).

There's some installer-related work to be done here to get things right for
new users who use POV-Ray on a system for the first time after the program
is already installed (basically a sub-installer process will need to run
and set up the required files for them in their profile automatically).

-- Chris

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