From: vassilii AT optimedia DOT co DOT il (Vassilii Khachaturov)
Subject: mount: HKEY_CURRENT_USER vs HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
7 Feb 1998 04:29:40 -0800
Message-ID: <317FF5D11BF2D011B81E00A024960DC41D74FC.cygnus.gnu-win32@axis.optimedia.co.il>
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To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com

The current cygwin.dll setup stores the mounts info in the user profile,
in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive. This means that the info is copied
together with the roaming profile from machine to machine, and hence on
all the machines the user is working the gnuwin32 stuff must be set up
in a similar way (at least the root directory will be on the same local
drive (say, C:) of all the machines.

Also, this means that if several users are wanting to share gnuwin32
installation on the same workstation, they must set up the mounts
separately.

All this diverges with the standard registry usage policies, where
machine-installation-specific preferences are stored under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (I think it's obvious that the root FS mount is
machine-specific!),
whereas user preferences, which are to be shared across several
machines, are stored in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER hive. (E.g., LOGNAME). It
also makes it much harder to make one user's profile be quickly copied &
modified for other user's usage,
as the other's userr workstation might simply not have the physical disk
where the root mount of the 1st goes.

1) Does anyone remember why did they choose HKEY_CURRENT_USER in
cygwin.dll?
2) Wouldn't it be nice for admin. purposes to have the mount info stored
in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE?
3) How about a compromise solution --- have a similar key under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, and check both, having user-specific preferences be
read after the default ones (cf. the system and user PATH in win32)?

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