Thread: Developer Notes
View Single Post
Old 01-21-2009, 01:44 PM   #305
feldon34
Forum Administrator
 
feldon34's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2000

Location: Rock Hill, SC
Posts: 10,938
I am assuming the the Marine Aquarium 3 installer application will prompt to install for "All Users" or the "Currently Logged in User" as most installer packages now offer this choice.


Now you cannot assume that the C: drive is the boot drive. Further, you cannot assume that Documents and Settings is the profile folder. From Windows XP Environment Variables:

If Marine Aquarium 3 is installed for "All Users" then Logos and Playlist should be stored in the reserved directory %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Application Data\SereneScreen\.

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\SereneScreen\ on most but not all systems.


If Marine Aquarium 3 is installed for a specific user and different users will have different logos and music playlists, then Logos and Playlist should be stored in the reserved directory %APPDATA%\SereneScreen\.

C:\Documents and Settings\Username\Application Data\SereneScreen\ on most but not all systems.


These directories are applicable to 2000, XP, Vista, and Windows 7.


The challenges:

When you install the Aquarium as All Users, a flag needs to be set somewhere for the Aquarium to look at one registry tree and one Documents and Settings folder regardless of the logged-in user. By the way this makes Uninstall easy.

However if you install the Aquarium on a User Account, then CURRENTUSER of the registry is used, and a specific user Profile folder inside Documents and Settings is used for that user's logos and playlists. If a user logs out and logs in, then they are using a different registry key, and different SereneScreen logo folder.


Now, how smart should the Aquarium then be expected to be? If you create a new user account should it scan the registry to see if there is an existing Aquarium Settings (especially one with a valid keycode?).

When you Uninstall the Aquarium, should it delete all profile information and registry keys for all users?
"Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed. Everything else is public relations." - George Orwell
"If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal." - Emma Goldman
feldon34 is offline   Reply With Quote