Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion
User settings storage debate
moerl:
One thing I never understood is why setups ask me if I'm installing just for myself or for "all users". Why the hell would I care? They need to default to putting application settings into user profile folders by default and skip this question entirely. What advantage could I possibly have from having settings stored for "one user only", which I assume means storing them in the program's install folder?
Eóin:
I think the 'all users' option in a lot of cases just means the shortcuts go into the 'all users' startmenu and other installation related things.
Josh:
The all users option allows settings to be stored in c:\users\default\appdata as opposed to the individual users folder. This is a good policy as well. If you want all users to use the same global settings, this is how to do it.
Ehtyar:
Thanks Ehtyar. It confirms some things...
-Armando (August 02, 2007, 10:06 AM)
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You're more than welcome, glad at least one positive thing has come out of this so far ;)
Separate installer? Please, no thanks. You'd have two basically identical downloads, except for one little configuration option. It could be an installer option...
-f0dder (August 02, 2007, 05:55 AM)
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I must agree here. I think the PStart installer is probably the example of an ideal portable/not portable installer; the user is given the option of installing to the root of a removable drive, or to program files. When extracted to program files all settings go to the registry, but when extracted to the root of a removable drive, a default xml config is extracted with it.
Ehtyar.
KenR:
I think the program directory, a directory in the Docs and Settings directory or in the registry (typically in CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\) is fine as a default, but I wish all programs gave you the option of specifying where you want to keep this information as well as the option to save and restore it. This would make it much easier to maintain program information and settings when you overwrite the OS partition.
Ken
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