[REBOL] Re: Windows registry keys
From: brian:hawley at: 16-Aug-2002 3:36
At 03:37 AM 8/16/02 +1000, you wrote:
>I am looking into the windows registry
>
>I wonder if other people have exactly the same
>long path element as in below:
>
>HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-21-1614895754-688789844-1060284298-1000\Software\Rebol
>
>Are the numbers exactly the same?
That key is a user-specific key on WinNT or above. On those
Windows you (when you have administrator access) can see the
registry settings of all of the users installed on the your
system. They are accessed through coded IDs under HKEY_USERS.
One of those branches is ".DEFAULT", a placeholder for the
settings that new users are created with. HKEY_CURRENT_USER
is a shortcut for the branch associated with the user that
is currently using the registry.
>I am interested in making a silent install for rebol.
Well, I for one would be very happy to see it. The current
installer for REBOL/View is quite unfriendly to multi-user
versions of Windows. That means every version in the NT
line, including 2000 and XP in particular. This becomes more
of a disadvantage with 2000 and XP. Fortunately the problem
is easy to fix.
A REBOL/View installation on Windows is currently single-
user, since it stores all of its data files in the same
directory as its program file. Since REBOL is generally
installed in a central location, this means that security
settings get in the way of using it. To run REBOL on Win2k
you need to be a "Power User", on XP an Administrator. Any
other setup can be a major security issue. This is also a
factor in installing REBOL on Terminal Server or other true
multi-user versions of Windows, like any version of XP. I'm
afraid this is what they mean by "logo-compliance".
REBOL doesn't need to be installed that way, though. The
program file is so small that you can give one to each user,
as long as you put it under the user's profile directory.
Fortunately that isn't as difficult as it sounds. Once
REBOL thinks it is installed the program file you are
actually running doesn't have to be in the same directory
as the data. As long as the data directory listed in
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Rebol\View:HOME
actually exists, REBOL will pop up the user settings
dialog and download all of its data files there (yes,
including a copy of rebol.exe that can go unused). Watch
out though: If the data directory doesn't exist before
REBOL tries to save the user preferences, REBOL will crash.
I have notified Feedback of this.
So a multi-user-clean install of REBOL would go like this:
- Copy rebol.exe into a central location like
C:\Program Files\REBOL
You can get the actual Program Files directory from
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
in the "ProgramFilesDir" value. Create the REBOL dir if needed.
- If you want file associations, you can create them like this:
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.r
- Under this set the default value to "REBOL.Script" (without
the quotes), and the "Content Type" (without the quotes)
value to "text/x-rebol" (without the quotes).
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\.r\ShellNew
- Under this set the NullFile value to the empty string.
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\REBOL.Script
- Under this set the default value to "REBOL Script" (without
the quotes), and the EditFlags value to a REG_BINARY of 0.
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\REBOL.Script\DefaultIcon
- Under this set the default value to the full path of the
program file where you copied it earlier, with ",0" appended
like this: C:\Program Files\REBOL\rebol.exe,0
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\REBOL.Script\shell
- Set its default value to View
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\REBOL.Script\shell\Edit
- Set its default value to &Edit
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\REBOL.Script\shell\Edit\command
- Set its default value to Notepad or some such, like this:
C:\WINNT\system32\NOTEPAD.EXE %1
You should use the txtfile association if you can.
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\REBOL.Script\shell\Open
- Set its default value to &Open
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\REBOL.Script\shell\Open\command
- Set its default value to the same command as Edit.
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\REBOL.Script\shell\View
- Set its default value to &View
- Create HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\REBOL.Script\shell\View\command
- Set its default value to the command to open a file, like:
"C:\Program Files\REBOL\rebol.exe" -q "%1"
with the quotes this time.
- Now for the user-specific settings, for every user, including
the default. First do HKEY_CURRENT_USER then each user under
HKEY_USERS. Win9x doesn't keep the user settings in keys like
the one you mentioned above, just ".DEFAULT", so you should
remember to do HKEY_CURRENT_USER first. I'll use <KEY> as a
placeholder for HKEY_CURRENT_USER, HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT, etc.
For each user:
- Create a "REBOL" directory under the AppData directory. You
can get the AppData directory from
<KEY>\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
in the "AppData" value. If the user has a license, you can
put it in the directory you created too.
- Create <KEY>\Software\Rebol
- Create <KEY>\Software\Rebol\Console
- Create <KEY>\Software\Rebol\View
- Under <KEY>\Software\Rebol\View, create values
- HOME : The REBOL version of the AppData REBOL directory
you created earlier, such as (on Win2k or above):
/C/Documents and Settings/user/Application Data/REBOL/
- Product : The product and version, like "View 1.2.8.3.1"
without the quotes.
- Create a per-user program group and shortcut to the global
REBOL program file in "C:\Program Files\REBOL" or whatever
the directory turned out to be. While you're at it you can
copy that shortcut to the user's desktop folder, which you
can get from
<KEY>\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders
in the "Desktop" value.
Try not to overwrite per-user settings that may already
exist, but go ahead and overwrite the global settings.
Don't bother using REBOL/View's built in uninstaller as
it is not multi-user friendly. If you want to provide a
user-accessible uninstaller, go ahead, but just let it
remove the per-user registry settings but not the files.
If you want an uninstaller to completely clean all of the
REBOL settings and program files, it's best to keep it to
yourself.
I hope this helped. Probably more information than you
needed, but if not I'll rig up an Inno Setup script
that will generate an installer that behaves as above
and post it for you.
Brian Hawley
