[Therion] Therion 5.4.1 Windows Installer incomplete installs

Владимир Георгиев vld.georgiev at gmail.com
Mon Oct 16 22:13:50 CEST 2017


Michal

The current installer should offer an option to install only for the
current user, which will not require admin rights.

But as Bruce mentioned, the current installer is not quite intelligent and
it is very easy to mess the locations if you have an older version
installed for all users (in Program Files) and install the newer one for
the current user. These are different locations and different registry
entries.

Most of the suggestions so far were to revert the installer to the previous
one, which had only the All users option and required admin rights. I think
you are the first one to actually say that you need a non-admin installer.

Making it admin only as before is the easiest thing to do, and "tried and
true" like Bruce said :)

If I make the installer more intelligent it could detect if the app is
already installed in a particular location for All/Current. And if it is
installed, it will reuse the location without asking for it. This way there
should be no conflicts. To change the install type users would have to
first uninstall. This will not be very hard, but still will require some
testing and I don't have the time lately.
I'll see if I can test it next week. Otherwise I will revert the installer
code to the previous one, but building and publishing the actual installer
files is up to Stacho and Martin.

Vladimir

On Mon, Oct 16, 2017 at 9:20 PM, Bruce Mutton via Therion <therion at speleo.sk
> wrote:

> Just a reminder,
>
> As far as I know, the current installation files mess up your Windows
> registry and both the installation folders if you have an existing
> installation in the ‘all users’ area and then you install over that with
> ‘only for me’.
>
> If you have a previous installation on a Windows machine, and you want to
> keep all your customised settings (ie without uninstalling the existing
> installation first), select 'Install for all users', and NOT 'Install only
> for me'. Otherwise you'll need to manually hack the registry to unpick the
> carnage.
>
> I posted about this on 30May2017, but for some reason it does not show up
> in the Mail Archive.  I’ll post it again in parallel with this message.
>
>
>
> I’ll put my vote in again for the simple tried and true ‘install for all
> users’.  Aside from the big issues (registry carnage), you know your
> installation files and settings will always be in C:\Program Files…
>
>
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
> *From:* Therion [mailto:therion-bounces at speleo.sk] *On Behalf Of *Michal
> Danko via Therion
> *Sent:* Monday, 16 October 2017 8:33 PM
> *To:* List for Therion users <therion at speleo.sk>
> *Cc:* Michal Danko <michal.danko at gmail.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Therion] Therion] Therion 5.4.1 Windows Installer
> incomplete installs
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> any news about installer without admin rights?
>
> For my it would be very handy because i use sometimes company pc without
> admin...
>
>
> S pozdravom
>
> Ing. Michal Danko
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 2:58 PM, Владимир Георгиев via Therion <
> therion at speleo.sk> wrote:
>
> I got your idea :)
>
> That means making the installer non-admin only, so it will always install
> the shortcuts and registry entries for the Current user only. And the
> default suggested install location will be in the user's AppData folder,
> not in Program files.
>
>
> The theoretical Therion user who shares a computer with another Therion
> user will have to install their own copy :)
>
> Vlad
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 3:49 PM, Footleg via Therion <therion at speleo.sk>
> wrote:
>
> I have yet to meet a Therion user who knows another Therion user who they
> share a computer with. So I would be happy with install for Current user
> only.
>
>
>
> Footleg
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 1:15 PM Владимир Георгиев via Therion <
> therion at speleo.sk> wrote:
>
> Yes, the location is flexible. I think it was that way in the old
> installer too.
>
> But there are also global Start menu shortcuts and registry entries that
> go into HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. For those the installer needs admin rights. If
> it doesn't have them, it comes down again to the All users vs Current user
> problem.
>
> Vlad
>
>
>
> On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 3:08 PM, Footleg via Therion <therion at speleo.sk>
> wrote:
>
> Usually a Windows application installer offers the option to install to a
> location of the users choosing. If this was done then users wanting to
> install without admin privileges could choose a location they have write
> permissions for. Otherwise users can choose to just click through 'Next' on
> each page to accept the default install under Program Files.
>
>
>
> Footleg
>
> On Mon, Jul 17, 2017 at 9:28 AM Bruce Mutton via Therion <
> therion at speleo.sk> wrote:
>
> It is outside of my area of expertise, however:
>
>    - No 1 seems dangerous, at the whim of future MS updates and there are
>    bound to be people with non-standard setups, or very old Windows versions,
>    any of which might break something that tries to be too clever.
>    - No 2 is OK by me.
>
> I don’t think I would use a ‘non-installed’ version.  The installer is
> compact, quick, easy and has proved versatile and reliable over at least 10
> years.  I rely on file associations heavily, to tweak my system to make
> Therion workflow ‘comfortable’.
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
> *From:* Therion [mailto:therion-bounces at speleo.sk] *On Behalf Of *????????
> ???????? via Therion
> *Sent:* Monday, 17 July 2017 7:55 PM
>
>
> *To:* List for Therion users <therion at speleo.sk>
>
> *Cc:* Владимир Георгиев <vld.georgiev at gmail.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [Therion] Therion] Therion 5.4.1 Windows Installer
> incomplete installs
>
>
>
> About the installer problems...
>
> Since I did the installer changes, here is that comes to mind:
> 1) I could try to make it more intelligent and to detect if there is an
> existing install location (all users or current user) and to install in the
> same one without the "All/Current user" prompt. This will probably not
> prevent all possible problems though.
>
> 2) Another solution would be to revert those changes and keep only the
> "All users" option, which requires admin privileges. This is how the older
> installers worked and always installed in Program Files.
>
> In addition to that, there could be a portable edition of Therion, which
> is distributed as a ZIP file and the user would only need to extract it in
> a folder. There would be no association to the TH, TH2 and THCONFIG file
> extensions of course. Currently the code reads the install location from
> the Win registry, but it could be made to search for files in the current
> folder.
>
> Does anyone have an opinion on what would be most useful?
>
> Would you use the portable option, or the "Current user" installer?
>
> Vladimir
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Therion at speleo.sk
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>
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