Uwe Stöhr schreef op 30-3-2014 17:15:
Am 30.03.2014 12:54, schrieb Vincent van Ravesteijn:
Well, the clue was in the last sentence. I asked: "do I have to be a
computer expert to install LyX again ?" Apparently, yes. I can't believe
you don't want to ask the "average" LyX user to copy his preferences,
because he probably doesn't understand what a preference is. At the same
time, you tell him to download some untrustworthy tool to mangle with
his
registry to be able to install LYX, just because some vague potential
problems.
You confuse me. I was telling that to you: what can be done in the the
worst case. Of course I wouldn't say that to an average user and the
case that a registry cleaner is necessary should ideally never appear
(except the user changed the registry manually).
First of all, what makes you think I encountered a problem ?
That is what I read our of your post.
I didn't say so. Secondly, this "installing over beta does not fix
bugs"-mantra is
not based on any fact thus far.
Call it a mantra or not. If you have to fiddle around with registry
and other settings almost every week to help users, you will
understand me. Re-installing is in most cases the solution.
Nevertheless, have you see the mail from a user that I just forwarded
to the list? He had the problem that installing RC1 over a beta made
problems even on Mac.
So, what would be wrong with a message "LyX is already installed. If you
want to repair LyX please uninstall first. Continue anyway?"
I can implement that, but not before LyX 2.1final. (Lack of time and
this change touches the translation of the installer and therefore my
current test of NSIS 3.0a2)
Or
"LyX is already installed. Do you want to repair (all settings will be
lost) the installation or continue?"
How should that work? If the user chooses repair, the installer must
run the uninstaller of the existing version first - complicated
because the registry checks are already performed at that time.
I therefore opt for the first solution.
So despite that I cannot remember the special use case and technical
reason that once lead to the feature not to allow to install stable
releases over each other, I think it is very clever. It might sound
inconvenient but in many cases the re-installation fixes the problem
that
lead a user to the action to try to install over the same stable
release.
Wow it's so clever .... You do not even read what I write about
people that
might not be able to uninstall LyX, because they thought deleting the
LyX
directory would help in getting a fresh install.
You will always find a case when it can fail. if the user changes
something manually we will be lost anyway. He might have deleted the
uninstaller or removed LyX's registry settings or whatever. This is
like when you have problems with you car and remove a cable from the
battery. The nowadays wide-spread car diagnosis toll will then fail.
It seems a very valid case that someone deletes the "C:\Program Files
(x86)\LyX21" directory to uninstall a not working LyX expecting that he
can install again.
It's like getting rid of the old broken car because you have problems
with it, and the car salesmen tell you they cannot sell you a new one
because you've bought a car before.
Vincent
