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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Chris Cason <del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
> 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.

  Sounds like Microsoft.

  It reminds me of the decision Microsoft made with Visual C++ when
compiling to 64-bit. In basically every other C/C++ compiler in existence,
if you compile to a 64-bit executable, the 'long' type will be 64 bits.
Except in Visual C++, where it's 32 bits.

  Why? Because of all the software out there (and I'm assuming a big bunch
of Microsoft software) which non-portably assume 32-bit longs.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On Mon, 25 Jan 2010 18:43:20 +0100, Chris Cason  
<del### [at] deletethistoopovrayorg> wrote:
>
> 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.

This feature is called "Virtualization" and can be disabled by embedding a  
manifest with a requestedExecutionLevel.

If that messes with the ability to install POV-Ray without administrative  
privileges, I think a better solution is to do what Warp suggested and  
just not have that as a default option.



-- 
FE

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Chris Cason wrote:

> 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 strange. I thought file virtualization would only kick
in on 32-bit Windows for applications which are *not* Vista-aware
(i.e., don't contain a manifest with requestExecutionLevel). If
the installer is Vista-aware I would have expected you get real
information about write privileges.

This may be related to providing the installer as an MSI. Come
to think of it there probably isn't a way to embed a manifest in
an MSI file. Building an EXE might solve the problem (and be more
convenient anyway for the user who wants to install it with
elevated privileges).

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>> 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.

I thought one of the reasons of not allowing someone Admin rights (eg in a 
corporate setting) was to stop them being able to install new programs 
(amongst other things)?

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"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> I thought one of the reasons of not allowing someone Admin rights (eg in a
> corporate setting) was to stop them being able to install new programs
> (amongst other things)?

The main reason is to manage rights, to protect the operating system (most
malwares have limited impact when running in non admin). Managing rights is to
ensure that a user will not do something dangerous such as installing a
spyware-based program in a corporate environment and transform a single computer
in a spam server.

This is for corporate environment or schools, public computers...

In a home computer, most users are admin by default, and if not, they can be
admin when they need. So, if a user wants to install POVRay at home, he doesn't
need to ask the admin "hey, can I install POVRay", he can run the software as
admin.

Okay, you win. I will manage to create a portable POVRay, i am downloading the
source code now... For sure, if I have enough time and this works, I'll share
the trick here (or not if the POVRay team releases a portable version before
me!).

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"Rocco" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.4b6341e72144d3b02d04182c0@news.povray.org...
> Okay, you win. I will manage to create a portable POVRay, i am downloading 
> the
> source code now... For sure, if I have enough time and this works, I'll 
> share
> the trick here (or not if the POVRay team releases a portable version 
> before
> me!).

Am I misunderstanding your intent, but isn't this issue managed within the 
installer NOT the application source code?

Jim

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> The main reason is to manage rights, to protect the operating system (most
> malwares have limited impact when running in non admin). Managing rights 
> is to
> ensure that a user will not do something dangerous such as installing a
> spyware-based program in a corporate environment and transform a single 
> computer
> in a spam server.

Indeed, which is why it seems absurd that a program installer should use 
special means (which are apparently not fully supported by the OS 
manufacturer) to try and install anyway even without these rights.

> In a home computer, most users are admin by default, and if not, they can 
> be
> admin when they need. So, if a user wants to install POVRay at home, he 
> doesn't
> need to ask the admin "hey, can I install POVRay", he can run the software 
> as
> admin.

Actually I found on my Vista and Win7 boxes that usually when a program 
wants to do something like install or update itself, a box pops up asking me 
to give Admin rights for this operation.

> Okay, you win. I will manage to create a portable POVRay, i am downloading 
> the
> source code now... For sure, if I have enough time and this works, I'll 
> share
> the trick here (or not if the POVRay team releases a portable version 
> before
> me!).

I don't really know what you mean here.  My idea is that POV installs just 
like any other program, which requires Admin rights to install in the usual 
place "Program Files".  Why the big effort and hacky workarounds to allow 
POV to be installed without Admin rights into some bizarre location?

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"scott" <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:

> I don't really know what you mean here.  My idea is that POV installs just
> like any other program, which requires Admin rights to install in the usual
> place "Program Files".  Why the big effort and hacky workarounds to allow
> POV to be installed without Admin rights into some bizarre location?

For me, here is how I define a "portable" program :

- In most case you have a zip archive (or a self-extracting package).
- You may extract it anywhere you want. Even external USB drive or memory card.
- It can run on the computer without needing any dependencies. The files are
stored in a directory structure.
- No registry writes, no DLL in Windows directory or program files.
- Uninstall is very easy : simply remove the directory where you extracted it
and the operating system remains clean.

The "one-two-three click" installers are the easy way for most people, and can
do more : associate files, install shared libraries for other programs, plugins,
but need more privileges.

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