Difference between XP and Vista/7?

[Scott Morrow]

Hello Lars,

Nothing new here, just another way of phrasing it. The previous posts  
have pointed out the importance of putting your writable files outside  
of the Programs folder and into a folder that the user has permission  
to write to.  Under XP many (though not all) users and applications  
had permission to write to the Programs folder but under Vista the  
default setting is that they can't.

On the Mac it is actually quite similar.  While many home users DO  
have permission to write to the Applications folder, this is not  
always the case.  Under managed user accounts (very common in business  
or education settings where IT manages the machines) the primary user  
may NOT be the administrator and so may not have write privileges to  
the Applications folder.  One approach is to have the "Splash.app"  
start by making sure that there is a copy of the writable files in the  
user's  < Library/Application Support > folder.  If the files aren't  
there, it copies these files out of the Applications folder and into  
the user's writable directory before loading them.

Scott Morrow

Elementary Software
(Now with 20% less chalk dust!)
web       http://elementarysoftware.com/
email     scott at elementarysoftware.com
------------------------------------------------------




On Nov 1, 2009, at 1:02 PM, Lars Brehmer wrote:

> Thanks Shao & Tiemo for the replies!
>
> I guess I didn't make myself very clear, or I don't completely  
> understand your suggestions, which is of course very likely, as I am  
> one of those weird Mac-based Rev users who only understand Macs and  
> Rev and not much else, and certainly nothing about Windows.
>
> In the Rev IDE I have a stack - let's call it "splashScreen" that  
> becomes the standalone application. There are also stacks "myData",  
> "theApp", "appGraphics" and a couple of others. When I set the  
> standalone application settings for the stack "splashScreen", in the  
> stacks pane I then add the stacks "myData", "theApp" and  
> "appGraphics" and the others. This gives me a standalone with  
> the .exe and the added stacks in the program folder (Windows) or the  
> application > Package > Contents > MacOS  (OSX). All very basic.  
> When the application opens, it opens the added stacks, which in my  
> simple understanding ARE the program, that is, what the user  
> actually uses. The splash screen app is just a construction to allow  
> changes to the "actual" program stacks. I learned this 5 years ago  
> from this very list and have been doing it this way ever since.  
> There are hundreds of posts in the rev digest suggesting this -  
> changes in a standalone application cannot be saved so make a splash  
> screen the actual application and include the other stacks that  
> might need to accept changes. So just now I found out the when I run  
> the application "splashScreen" in Vista / 7 and want to do this;
>
> set the whatEver of stack "myData" to true
> save stack "myData"
>
> it isn't saved. But it isn't saved only when the application is  
> installed via the installer I made with Inno. If the program folder  
> is just sitting on the desktop, it does work as expected.
>
> Shao Sean wrote:
>
>> While most systems are pretty relaxed about it, if the user trying  
>> to use your software does not  have privileges to modify the  
>> content of the directory your scheme stops working..
>
>
> I have to say I don't understand this, but my natural question is  
> how do you give the user such priveleges? Is it even possible?
>
> further;
>
>> In Vista (and I am assuming Windows 7) there is the lovely virtual  
>> store which might be happening with your code seeing as it works  
>> when on the desktop but not installed in the Program Files  
>> directory.. Try saving your license stack to a safe folder  
>> (appdata) and see if that  works better for you..
>
> I assume by "license stack " you mean what I called "myData". So how  
> do I do this? How can I get that stack out of the program folder and  
> into the Program Data folder? This question clearly shows how little  
> I know and how dependent I am on the simplicity of RunRev - my  
> standalones are 100% self contained - no databases, no writing to  
> external files - just rev stacks and custom properties. Which al  
> worked perfectly until Vista/7.
>
> Tiemo wrote;
>
>> as Shao already pointed out, you may not write / update to the  
>> program dir,as far, as you haven't given full access for a normal  
>> user to your sub dir. The installer (inno) gets from vista once  
>> admin persmissions because of the name of the setup to allow him to  
>> write to the program dir. But your standalone may not.
>
> again, how do I give that access to a user if it is at all possible?
>
> The problem for people like me is that what worked in MacOS, OSX and  
> every version of Windows throught XP sp3 suddenly doesn't work  
> anymore. And no mention by RunRev that saving changes to stacks  
> included in the standalone no longer works, at least no mention that  
> I have ever seen. I have been reading this digest for 5 years now  
> for the great tips and ideas, but I don't recall seeing that the  
> entire stack paradigm and the use of changeable custom properties  
> changed completely when Vista was relased. True, I don't read every  
> post as carefully as the ones that are directly applicable to my  
> work, but I have to think that I would have noticed something this  
> important! Then again maybe not ;-) Besides that, I am still using  
> Rev 2.8. In newer versions does in mention in the sandalone settings  
> that just adding stacks in Vista / 7 will not allow changes to those  
> stacks? Does it put the added stacks somewhere else so that it does  
> work? I am very confused at this point and would appreciate some  
> more help.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Lars
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