installation puts shortcuts in the current user profile

[rpremuz]

On MS Windows 2000 and Windows XP (which are supported by World Wind)
the following environment variables exist (among others) after a user
logs into Windows:
ALLUSERSPROFILE - directory path of the user profile accessible by all users
USERPROFILE - directory path of the current user profile

I installed World Wind 1.4 on an MS Windows XP Professional SP3
(English edition) and noticed that the installation put shortcuts for
starting the application into the following directory:
"%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\NASA\World Wind"
which is intended only for that particular user. If other users log
into the system, they can't access the shortcuts (i.e. the shortcuts
don't appear on the Start Menu).

Instead the installation should put the shortcuts in
"%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\NASA\World Wind"

Here are two commands that the admin (who run the installation)
can run in cmd.exe to fix the problem:

xcopy "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\NASA\World Wind" "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\NASA\World Wind" /I
rmdir /s /q "%USERPROFILE%\Start Menu\Programs\NASA\World Wind"

Please fix the problem in the next release of the software.

BTW, I see that problem too often in software developed for MS Windows
and I'd say that many software developers for MS environment lack
knowledge of basic rules for administration of a multi-user system:
(1) There is an administrative user account that is used for
installing software (including drivers) or configuring some
system-wide settings.
(2) Users should log in with user accounts that don't have the
administrative rights, i.e. they are not able to install any software
except some simple plug-ins for Internet browsers.
(3) Every application software installed on the system should run
without requiring that the user has administrative rights on the
system. Also, the application should save the user's settings in the
area of the system that belongs to and is intended for use by the user
(e.g. user's home directory, user's profile directory, user's registry
files).

In the past Microsoft didn't try hard to teach users and developers to
follow such rules and so many got used to some bad habits regarding
using the Windows, which caused everybody many problems.

-- rpr.

[bull]

I will try to fix this in the next release.

[Ammianus]

Don't most applications have some option in the installation saying do you want Shortcuts visible to all users or just to current user? Is this fix to do the same, or to default to All users.

(3) Every application software installed on the system should run
without requiring that the user has administrative rights on the
system. Also, the application should save the user's settings in the
area of the system that belongs to and is intended for use by the user
(e.g. user's home directory, user's profile directory, user's registry
files).

Specifically for this do you mean that each user has separate cache files, separate preferences?

I haven't tried but in Windows Vista, the settings for WW.NET are saved under C:\Users\<myusername>\AppData\Roaming\NA SA\World Wind\1.4.0.1 i.e. World.xml for start up settings, and WorldWind.xml for cache, config and data information.

Wouldn't this be stored per user if they configured it already? I guess by default the cache, data and config information are stored in the WorldWind installation directory. Maybe these defaults should be changed to the relevant user directories? But then again doesn't it make some sense for the cache to be shared rather than repeated in multiple places?

This has been logged as Issue 9 on the 1_4_1_Issues. Please note this does not mean it will be or is planned to be fixed at this time.

If this application is an msi installer you might be able to resolve the issue buy setting the ALLUSER property in the command line.

[m_k]

WW.Net uses NSIS installer.