From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: windows installer Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2017 09:48:08 +0200 Message-ID: <83d14pp87b.fsf@gnu.org> References: <87po99qzbn.fsf@russet.org.uk> <1509955878.550800.1162811960.541B525D@webmail.messagingengine.com> <87h8u6bae3.fsf@russet.org.uk> <1510126271.1965593.1165373624.0601E5CF@webmail.messagingengine.com> <8760aijcek.fsf@russet.org.uk> <83ineiotjr.fsf@gnu.org> <87375l4sui.fsf@russet.org.uk> Reply-To: Eli Zaretskii NNTP-Posting-Host: blaine.gmane.org X-Trace: blaine.gmane.org 1510386503 13354 195.159.176.226 (11 Nov 2017 07:48:23 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@blaine.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2017 07:48:23 +0000 (UTC) Cc: jostein@kjonigsen.net, jostein@secure.kjonigsen.net, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Nov 11 08:48:11 2017 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by blaine.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1eDQWQ-0002uq-Dd for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 11 Nov 2017 08:48:10 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:44728 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eDQWX-0001sa-KT for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Sat, 11 Nov 2017 02:48:17 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:42073) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eDQWR-0001sH-8P for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 11 Nov 2017 02:48:12 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eDQWO-00056l-60 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sat, 11 Nov 2017 02:48:11 -0500 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::e]:53304) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1eDQWO-00056a-27; Sat, 11 Nov 2017 02:48:08 -0500 Original-Received: from [176.228.60.248] (port=1699 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:256) (Exim 4.82) (envelope-from ) id 1eDQWN-0005ii-9h; Sat, 11 Nov 2017 02:48:07 -0500 In-reply-to: <87375l4sui.fsf@russet.org.uk> (phillip.lord@russet.org.uk) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.2.x-3.x [generic] X-Received-From: 2001:4830:134:3::e X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.21 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:220051 Archived-At: > From: phillip.lord@russet.org.uk (Phillip Lord) > Cc: jostein@secure.kjonigsen.net, jostein@kjonigsen.net, emacs-devel@gnu.org > Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2017 23:27:49 +0000 > > >> > environment-variables on my Windows 10 test-machine: USERPROFILE (or > >> > by concatenating HOMEDRIVE and HOMEPATH ). > >> > >> I'll fix this. > > > > Just to make this more complex: the Windows platform conventions frown > > upon installing stuff in that directory; you are supposed to create a > > subdirectory and install there. > > > > And programs should not end up there, they should be under > > %ProgramFiles% instead. The user's directory is for files, not for > > programs. > > The disadvantage with ProgramFiles is that it requires elevation, which > user profile does not, although user profiles gets mixed up with > roaming. Although, elevation is pretty normal for installation. But I > didn't want to it straight away in case I made the uninstaller > accidentally delete my windows installation. I don't think I understand the last sentence. For the rest, installing into the user's profile because doing TRT is harder is not a sufficient reason in my book. If you want to avoid elevation (which I don't think you should, given that this is "normal" Windows behavior nowadays), then install into a directory that is neither user profile nor Program Files (and maybe not even drive C:, if there is another drive). But going to the user profile is highly unusual, to say the least. > > They _will_ want to add it to PATH if they want to install packages > > from the likes of ELPA, which frequently come with Makefiles that > > invoke Emacs to compile the Lisp files. > > Really? AFAIU, yes. And even if ELPA packages have alternatives which don't invoke Make, there will be other situations where building a package with Emacs support will want to invoke Emacs. One such example is GNU ID-utils. IOW, Emacs is not just a GUI application used interactively, it is also a program that supports batch-mode invocation, and that mode is at times used by other programs. Keeping the Emacs binary off the users' system PATH is therefore less than ideal, because the users will then bump into subtle problems whereby Emacs seems "unavailable".