Mark H. Wood wrote:
I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do. The data in the profile
directory on win32 will be copied to the server each time
you do a logoff, so this will copy probably a huge amount of data.
...unless you don't have a roaming profile. How many people do?
Not nearly enough. :-(
Yes, but they can be a headache...
Also, isn't that where *most* applications put their data, by default -
in some directory under your profile directory? (Presumably that's why
profile directories get put under "Documents and Settings" in NT 5.x.)
I'd say the best default for capture files would be to ask the shell for
the My Documents path. That's another place which can be separately
redirected, and it's appropriate for files which are used by an
application but are not an essential part of its setup. You need to ask
the shell because these paths are localizable.
Yes, but according to this
(http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/gpx_redirecthome.mspx)
which is all I know about redirection of My Documents because I stopped
researching after I read it:
1) It should *only* be done for legacy support
2) It only works with XP Pro clients
and
3) there are security and encryption issues
I'd rather users get to choose where to put it.
The distinction between startup/operational data for the product's own
use, and user data, is always important, but it's especially important to
think about it in the Windows context, both because they are kept
topologically close together in the Windows model, and because incorrect
placement of large files in a roaming profile will put a severe strain on
the "briefcase reconciler" and lead to unpleasant logon/logoff delays.
Absolutely. I do know that a lot of sites do not redirect My Documents
because of the article I mention above.
BTW *scratch* files should go in %TEMP%, if that wasn't obvious. Not only
can this be redirected, it is by default excluded from copy-in/copy-out
along with all the other stuff in %USERPROFILE%\LocalSettings.
Yes. And this is important. I have users with 5G profiles who complain
that the login takes too long when they go to a machine for the first
time. It seems that no amount of education will change their minds about
where to put files.
Some of these nice distinctions weren't implemented in earlier versions of
Win32, but I figure that anyone who is still running Windows 95 in 2004
gets what he deserves.
Yes, but according to what I referenced above (and it may be wrong) 2000
won't do everything either.
Also some people reported, that the working dir must be the same as the
exe's dir, to work together with GTK-Wimp,
however, I didn't tested this myself.
That sounds like a severe botch in GTK-Wimp.
If it's a question of the GTK-Wimp libraries being on the PATH, consider
having the installer add ethereal to the list of known applications with
an augmented PATH. That is, make a key in
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AppPaths with the name
"ethereal.exe" (or whatever), a default value of the full path to the
Ethereal executable, and a value "Path" being a string containing paths to
be appended to PATH whenever ethereal.exe is run. This way you avoid
gunking up the default PATH with stuff that has no significance to
anything else.
THis is a good idea. I have the ethereal dir in my path.
--
John McDermott
Writer, Educator, Consultant
jjm@xxxxxxxxxx http://www.jkintl.com
V +1 505/377-6293 F +1 505/377-6313
