get specialFolderpath(26)

Dave Cragg dcragg at lacscentre.co.uk
Wed Oct 16 16:22:00 EDT 2002


At 8:04 am -0700 16/10/02, Rob Cozens wrote:
>>There is a potential problem here if you need to write data to this
>>folder and your app is installed in the Program Files folder.
>
>Thanks for the heads up, Dave.  Can you give me more details or
>point me to a URL that explains this?

The url I had no longer points to the same page. The one below might 
be of some help. It's for handling application and user data with 
Visual C++.NET, so it should be a piece of cake for us xtalk people. 
:)

<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q310294>

>How does one configure an app for Windows installation so that users
>without access to the Program Files folder AND system administrators
>can install it?

In a multi-user world, it's the machine's Administrator (superuser, 
root, whatever) who controls what other users of the machine can do, 
so first you should assume it may not be possible for another user to 
install an application to a common location. I guess that's how it 
should be.

Newer installers on Windows XP typically ask for an Administrator 
password if the currently logged on user doesn't have Administrator 
rights. (Just like in OS X.) Older installers usually don't ask for a 
password, but will probably fail to install if the current user 
doesn't have at least "power user" rights.

Again like in OS X, drag and drop installation can work on Windows. 
And Rev makes this easy to do. But drag and drop is restricted to the 
locations where the user is allowed to put files.

On XP, it seems these locations are more restricted than on previous 
Windows versions. I believe the problem is worse with the Home 
edition of XP, as only two types of user can be created: 
Administrators and Plain Users. The Pro edition has all kinds of 
pre-configured users.

To do things "properly", a commercial installer is probably the easiest way.

Cheers
Dave






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