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On 24/01/2010 5:25 AM, Fredrik Eriksson wrote:
> Many installers are properly setup to request privilege escalation if
> needed. In some cases, Windows itself will deduce that it is needed and
> automatically prompt for it.
The installer is built with installshield, is aware of Vista, and will
request elevation. However it is also marked as being capable of being
installed by a non-privileged user. Combining both of these causes issues
on vista. Due to the way that Windows Installer works (at least with our
current setup - never mind what other software can or might do) it needs to
be started with admin privileges first if it is to work "correctly".
One of the reasons is that Windows lies if the installer asks if it already
has admin privileges (I use this word deliberately since this is exactly
what happens: it is a deliberate action taken by Microsoft to tell the
installer false information). One of these issues is that during the user
interface portion of the install I can't tell if you're privileged or not.
Given that windows allows you to write to program files (but silently
re-directs the writes), technically escalation is not required and thus
vista doesn't necessarily invoke it. Frankly I've forgotten the fine
details but I can say I've spent way too long on trying to get it to behave
the way I want and basically decided it's not worth wasting any more time
on it. This is fundamentally a Microsoft issue and there's little I can do
about it.
-- Chris
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On 24/01/2010 5:19 AM, Warp wrote:
> There is something POV-Ray can do: Ask the user what to do. ("Because of
> <reason xyz> POV-Ray will be installed in <the My Documents folder>.
> Yes/No/Cancel.")
After 15 years of working on POV-Ray, I have learnt one thing in
particular: 99% of users don't read what the installer says, but will just
click through on everything. Some will then complain when it does something
they don't expect.
Example: the installer used to ask if it should register POV-Ray as the
application to open .INI files. This question was clear and required a
yes/no answer. I still got people complaining that POV had 'stolen' the
association for INI files and that this 'was really rude' (or words to that
effect). So, I took that feature out and no longer associate INI files.
To put it simply, the installer has to be written in such a way as to cater
to the vast majority of users *without* causing us support hassles. This
means I have to apply KISS to the design.
-- Chris
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Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoo povrayorg> wrote:
> On 24/01/2010 5:19 AM, Warp wrote:
> > There is something POV-Ray can do: Ask the user what to do. ("Because of
> > <reason xyz> POV-Ray will be installed in <the My Documents folder>.
> > Yes/No/Cancel.")
> After 15 years of working on POV-Ray, I have learnt one thing in
> particular: 99% of users don't read what the installer says, but will just
> click through on everything. Some will then complain when it does something
> they don't expect.
> Example: the installer used to ask if it should register POV-Ray as the
> application to open .INI files. This question was clear and required a
> yes/no answer. I still got people complaining that POV had 'stolen' the
> association for INI files and that this 'was really rude' (or words to that
> effect). So, I took that feature out and no longer associate INI files.
> To put it simply, the installer has to be written in such a way as to cater
> to the vast majority of users *without* causing us support hassles. This
> means I have to apply KISS to the design.
I think that in this particular case the path-of-least-confusion would be
for the installer to fail to install by default if the user has no
privileges to install to the Program Files directory (with a clear error
message stating so), and make the option to install into the My Documents
directory non-trivial (but accessible).
But I understand it if it's mostly out of your control if the installer
program is made by Microsoft and not you.
--
- Warp
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Warp wrote:
> What do other programs do?
Well, most software simply doesn't support being installed by a
user with restricted rights. It's perfectly normal under Windows.
And if you are on a Windows system where you don't have access to
administrator privileges even through elevation, then it's usually
an environment where you shouldn't be installing software anyway.
The concept of UAC is designed to force developers to write
software which *runs* under a restricted user account. It does
not seem to be designed to encourage software which *installs*
under a restricted user account (although that is mainly due
to naming conventions ... if you think of "my documents" as
your "home" directory, what povray does makes some sense).
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> There is really no need to start over discussing the benefits and
> drawbacks of Vista rights management! They are for M$ to fix, and nothing
> POV-Ray can do anything about.
I wonder how every other piece of software manages it?
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On 25.01.10 11:28, scott wrote:
>> There is really no need to start over discussing the benefits and
>> drawbacks of Vista rights management! They are for M$ to fix, and
>> nothing POV-Ray can do anything about.
>
> I wonder how every other piece of software manages it?
I don't know a lot of software that can be installed without administrator
rights on Windows...
Thorsten
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On 25.01.10 11:28, scott wrote:
>> There is really no need to start over discussing the benefits and
>> drawbacks of Vista rights management! They are for M$ to fix, and
>> nothing POV-Ray can do anything about.
>
> I wonder how every other piece of software manages it?
I don't know a lot of software that can be installed without administrator
rights on Windows...
Thorsten
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>> I wonder how every other piece of software manages it?
>
> I don't know a lot of software that can be installed without administrator
> rights on Windows...
I wonder why.
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Thorsten Froehlich wrote:
> I don't know a lot of software that can be installed without
> administrator rights on Windows...
I've seen one or two, mainly stuff served off a web server to interact with
the web services one particular company offers, like online meeting managers
and such. That, and a few packages like Tcl and some games. If you like, I
can spin up a XP VM and see where an old version of Tcl puts itself when you
ask for a per-user install, since it's a similar sort of language-processing
package.
The ones I've seen recently create a directory for themselves under the
parent directory of "my documents". (I.e., "my documents" isn't really your
"home" directory any more than "Desktop" is.) That might be a better place
to put things in future releases, since it's less obtrusive. And I'm
*pretty* sure you can change the association for files on a per-user basis,
but I might be misremembering that.
Alternately, putting the code under local appdata and the data under roaming
appdata might make a lot of sense also.
Of course, all that assumes you can tell whether you're actually installing
for one user or for everyone. :-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
Forget "focus follows mouse." When do
I get "focus follows gaze"?
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On 25/01/2010 5:16 AM, Warp wrote:
> I think that in this particular case the path-of-least-confusion would be
> for the installer to fail to install by default if the user has no
> privileges to install to the Program Files directory (with a clear error
> message stating so), and make the option to install into the My Documents
> directory non-trivial (but accessible).
The problem is I can't necessarily tell if it will fail. If I ask the API
if the installer has write privilege, it tells me "yes". And if it does
write, the writes are then diverted into the user's profile. This is by
design, to 'help' legacy software. It's a massive PITA though.
-- Chris
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