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Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:55:05 -0800
From: Linda Walsh <cygwin AT tlinx DOT org>
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Subject: Re: How does one find where Cygwin was installed from Windows?
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Larry Hall (Cygwin) wrote:
> Linda, you've been around this list long enough to understand how to
> handle them.  Please, if you want to berate someone for answering
> your posts, do it on one list only.  
---
	That wasn't my intent in my original response.  I originally
only wanted to report a problem in a cygwin-app and "off the cuff",
I suggested a possible solution.  My bad.  But it raised the question --
if my solution didn't work, then what was a good solution.  So I asked
how a generic Windows ".bat" program could find out where Cygwin
was installed -- with a lead-in of asking of how it was done in
the "mount -p" program.

	You told me that was not necessary for me to know -- but it
still didn't answer the 2nd half -- which was how a general "Windows.bat"
file might find the location of "Cygwin" so it could even call "mount -p"
in the first place.

	Please note.  The ".bat" file in question ISN'T my .bat
file.  I made a suggestion that was incorrect.  So I wanted to know
how someone writing ".bat" file, in the general case, *should* be
doing it --- the conversation wasn't designed to be berating.  It was
just growing frustrating because the "preferred answer" seemed to be
"circular".  I.e. 'mount' will always be in "/bin" -- which implies
knowing where "bin" is

	Turns out the answer is that there is no good solution.

	This could then be a "lead-in" to a next suggestion --
that just like on linux on QT -- or on Windows with various utils,
they put something in the environment so other programs can locate
where the package was installed.

	I.e. maybe Cygwin should add an "official dir" in the
system (for an all-user install), or user (for a 1-user install)
environment (stored in the registry), so add-on applications that
rely on Cygwin or rely on knowing where it was installed will work.

	It's not like in Windows where you can add something to
the linux-registry, "/etc", or path-specific part "/etc/profile.d"
and have other apps pick up this information.  It would make
more sense to put it in a registry environment variable.

	What do you think?

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