From: jordanh AT ccia DOT com (Jordan Henderson)
Subject: Re: Proper location of the cygwin.dll  WAS: Re: b19 and 
    cygwin.dll
18 Feb 1998 18:50:16 -0800
Message-ID: <199802181350.IAA10922.cygnus.gnu-win32@jaguar.ccia.com>
References: <19980216155457 DOT 28897 DOT qmail AT hotmail DOT com>
To: earnie_boyd AT hotmail DOT com
Cc: ert AT cit DOT org DOT by, gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com

>>I have Source Navigator lite and gnuwin32 b18
>>installed on my computer. So cygwin.dll is placed
>>in 3 points.
>>
>>I think that  to place cygwin.dll in somewhere like c:\windows\system32
>>would be quite good idea.
>
>You know, I've always hated that idea.  For a tool specific resource to 
>go into the operating system shared resources isn't a very good idea at 
>all.

I agree, its not a good idea. If you look at the history on this, you
will note, that, this common soup approach is ONLY used in Bill Gates
products. In the rest of the world, like Unix, VMS, etc, this never
was done, specifically because of the problems with multiple releases
being installed, etc. It is a really bad idea.

Lets consider the case where you did put the cygwin.dll into this
common area.

What would happen if you wanted to have b18 and b19 releases installed,
and since your using bash, you want to be able to compile and run
tests against both releases? In the common path case, you can't.

(Well, perhaps it is, but it requires a good deal of extra work.)

A second point, it why does windows need an 'uninstall' function?
Well basically, its because during install, applications scatter
there bits in several places, unknown to the person who is installing.
How do we clean up after that? Well, now we need a special utility.

And lets talk about disk space management. The c:/windows/system
directory uses alot of space. The fact is, you might have 3 or 4
disk drives: C,D,E,F. D,E,F might each be 4 gig drives, with lots
of free space. C on the other hand, since it holds,  C;/windows,
has very little free space. You go to install a new application.
The application asks, where?, You say drive D, has lots of free
space. Well the install can still fail, since many of these programs,
as you point out, install the *.dll into the c:/windows/system.

Lets mention access time. How long does it take to search a directory
with 1000 files in it?

I say lets put the stuff with the application, and not scatter its
bits in a bill gates fashion.

>
>>At first, it would result the reduction of disk space.
>>At second, it would result the reduction of length PATH variable .
>>And at last, it is general(common) practice to place shared resources 
>in
>>c:\windows\system32 .

Jordan

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