Quote from Kegetys :

In XP one way to change it is from computer management, local users and groups, users and then right click on the user and go to properties. In the 'profile' tab there is a setting for home folder, which should default to empty (In which case it will use 'documents and settings', or 'users' in vista/7).

Thx, just tested it in VPC.

After changing the setting the new folder is created. None of the data was moved so I tried to move it manually which of course failed due to files being in use.

So then I booted my Win7 DVD to repair mode and used robocopy to move the files from the old user home to the new one. Then after rebooting Windows looked and behaved as if I had reinstalled the OS, with quite a few apps broken... Then I tried installing new software and guess what, Windows didn't even use the new user location I had set up but used 'Documents and Settings' instead.

So not only was the procedure complicated, it was also completely useless, and more or less messed up my (virtual) system.

Obviously I did something wrong along the way, but this little experiment has convinced me even more that something is very wrong with the Windows file location structure. I mean surely there needs to be a simple way to put the user data to a place that is not on the same drive as the OS?

great job

worked good for me.

Sorry to weigh in really late on this one, but -

Quote from Victor :

How on earth is an average windows user supposed to understand all this?

They aren't. That's the point. The companies and people producing software should be familiar enough with the concepts of preventing their program file directory from being globally writable, etc.

I would like to say that these are new concepts and that it is a surprise, unfortunately it's not and it's something I have to battle with on a monthly basis for customers that use terminal servers and other highly locked down Windows based environments. %APPDATA% and %USERPROFILE% exist for a bloodly good reason, all of which Kegetys has already outlined. They should be used, and potentially you should at least have the ability to manually specify another location for storage if neither of these are suitable for the user.

Installation/file association/uninstall worked fine on my system (Win7x64)

The default destanition folder is "C:\LFS\"?

Quote from Gegry1992 :

The default destanition folder is "C:\LFS\"?

Yes

when i install the lfs with this installer, i must one more time unlock my s2 licence?

It's just a test of the installer. I think most people run the test in a new place then uninstall it again. No-one needs to install this unless they want to test the installer, which many people have done and that has been very helpful because it seems all the problems have been resolved (other than that we are not yet conforming to the way MS would like developers to save application data and user data in different places on the hard drive to allow multiple users to share application data and to allow free roaming - which is a programming project and not simply a matter of choosing a default install location).

Of course, you can install it and unlock if you want to. You'll get another unlock on Friday as you do every Friday when you have less than 2 spare.

Disclaimer : The word "yet" in the paragraph above does not imply that we will definitely support the directories all over the place thing. I will read up on that at some time in the future when I do not have higher priority tasks so do, and decide to do that if it is interesting and would help in some way. And I have many much higher priority tasks than making LFS conform to a system designed to help with large "applications" that LFS is not.

Quote from Scawen :

It's just a test of the installer. I think most people run the test in a new place then uninstall it again. No-one needs to install this unless they want to test the installer, which many people have done and that has been very helpful because it seems all the problems have been resolved (other than that we are not yet conforming to the way MS would like developers to save application data and user data in different places on the hard drive to allow multiple users to share application data and to allow free roaming - which is a programming project and not simply a matter of choosing a default install location).

I would like to point out that Unix based operating systems have had almost similar way of saving user data and application data in separate folders quite a bit longer than Windows. After using those system for years now, I can see the benefits that kegetys pointed out already much more clearly.

Quote from scawen :

does not imply that we will definitely support the directories all over the place thing.

:d

Installed in default dir and uninstalled with no problems at all in XP32.

So, to sum it up, it just decompress the "installer" in the chosen folder, it creates some default associations, and points the new user to "create account" webpage? That's it ?

Quote from the_angry_angel :

Sorry to weigh in really late on this one, but -
They aren't. That's the point. The companies and people producing software should be familiar enough with the concepts of preventing their program file directory from being globally writable, etc.

I would like to say that these are new concepts and that it is a surprise, unfortunately it's not and it's something I have to battle with on a monthly basis for customers that use terminal servers and other highly locked down Windows based environments. %APPDATA% and %USERPROFILE% exist for a bloodly good reason, all of which Kegetys has already outlined. They should be used, and potentially you should at least have the ability to manually specify another location for storage if neither of these are suitable for the user.

In defense of the average user he should know this when installing skins or setups. Its not as easy then as just look where the program. So its not easy and transparant. Maybe to new windows users, definetely not to old. No matter which good reasons there might have been for introducing it.

Especially since both kegesys and yourself are looking mainly from programmers view.

Works perfect on Windows 7 64bit.

Quote from Ripley :

Installed in default dir and uninstalled with no problems at all in XP32.

So, to sum it up, it just decompress the "installer" in the chosen folder, it creates some default associations, and points the new user to "create account" webpage? That's it ?

pretty much, yes
And translations are being added as we speak

It works perfectly on W7 64x.. now we want to test new physics please.

Quote from Ripley :

Installed in default dir and uninstalled with no problems at all in XP32.

So, to sum it up, it just decompress the "installer" in the chosen folder, it creates some default associations, and points the new user to "create account" webpage? That's it ?

Yes, this is just to make it easier to install LFS.

Many users, who have used a computer for years, don't actually know how to deal with a self extracting archive, because they have simply never come across one. The just download the installer and run it (without moving it to the place where they want their program to be).

So... many users end up with LFS in their downloads folder or on their desktop. Others, thinking more carefully, install it into their program files folder, but Victor has been receiving more mails with problems that come up from this approach, when users use Vista or Windows Seven and there are access problems which depend on whether they are logged in as administrator or not. Another problem is people asking how to uninstall LFS - they don't realise that they can simply delete the folder (not a good way to uninstall most software although that was the only way to remove LFS).

So all we are doing is providing an installer than you can run from any location and LFS will be installed in a good place (just like most software you download). And it can be uninstalled in the normal way. The effect on the registry is minimal - just those file associations and there is an LFS entry in the start menu, including an uninstall function. LFS itself doesn't even know about it - it's just the same old Z25.

Thanks Victor & Scawen.

Quote from Scawen :

Yes, this is just to make it easier to install LFS.

Many users, who have used a computer for years, don't actually know how to deal with a self extracting archive, because they have simply never come across one. The just download the installer and run it (without moving it to the place where they want their program to be).

That's so true. I know many people who have downloaded LFS to their Downloads folder, opened the self extracting archive and simply pressed the first button that appeared on the screen as if it were a normal installer, expecting it to install in the correct place and create a uninstall option, just to then find out their download folder (which was already not very organized) was now filled with LFS files, and that they had to figure out which files belong to LFS and which doesn't in order to delete them to then try doing it right the next time with the self extracting archive.

I've also seen some people that even think about changing the extracting location, but only put something like C:\Program Files\ and expect the self-extracting file to create the LFS folder (which it doesn't), thus having their Program Files folder messed up, and again not knowing which files belong to LFS and which don't.

Edit: I for myself when I first downloaded LFS I opened the self extracting archive, noticed that screen with the place to extract the game and I didn't like it because by that time I couldn't know if it was going to first extract the game to then install it or if it would be ready to play right after extracting, and then, trying not to mess anything up, I just thought of it like any other compressed file and chose "Extract it to LFS_PATCH_U folder" on WinRAR.

Yes. Just ask your Dad to download and install LFS then go and have a look at his computer.

nice to see updates
but download is very slow and i dont know why...
its not my internet connection

as a fact:
all the LFS.net sites are loading slow on my computer
all other sites are still ok with loading/downloading speed.

So... is the new installer going to replace completely the old self extracting file or are you going to keep both formats? There are many people who are happy and used to the non-installer format, and we prefer it that way. I really feel more comfortable with the non installable version, but anyway I understand that the average Windows user will go 100% of the times for the installer.

Please consider the possibility of keeping the self extracting version (or just a normal zip file) as a secondary download option for us who like to manage our folders "manually"

As I said before, the installer changes nothing for those who prefer a zip. Right-click and extract to.. works exactly the same way as before.

It's not so different than what we're used to.
File associations aside, the installer just unzips itself in the folder you provide.

The benefit is that it creates a parent folder, so that the average newbie doesn't mix up files.

Edit: well, I right-clicked on it just to try, and it created some weird temp $$$ folders (XP with 7-zip)...I guess game doesn't like that folder structure...

I have attached a new test installer (that only contains two LFS files, so it doesn't install LFS fully) with 26 translations.

The (main) tests :
-When the language selection box opens, is the right default language pre-selected for you? (and which one was that, in case there was one available for youor language)
-When selecting that language, does the text in the rest of the installer look good?

You will not see all 26 translations in the language selector. That is because of limitations in the way NSIS uses codepages. You should however see all the language that your computer/NSIS can display correctly.
The language selector should just be for testing. It will be removed later on if it appears the auto-detection works properly.

supported languages :
Belarussian
Brazilian
Bulgarian
Castellano
Catalan
Croatian
Czech
Dansk
Deutsch
Estonian
French
Hungarian
Italiano
Japanese
Korean
Latino
Latvian
Lithuanian
Nederlands
Norsk
Polski
Russian
Serbian
Simplified_Chinese
Slovak
Suomi

EDIT - updated with some modifications