Re: Suggestion for Win O/S: MIKTEX_BIN environment variable

On 31 October 2013 21:26, Jerry <[email protected]> said:

>
> Most of that information is recorded in the "Registry". That is where
> many installers look for just the information that you are talking
> about.


I knew that already.  Well, as a matter of fact, they don't match exactly
what I was talking about.  Let me ask you a question:
Did you record the bin directory in registry?  I mean the path that stops
at the "\" character, something like "C:\Program Files\MiKTeX
2.9\miktex\bin\x64*\*" but nothing else?
I can answer for you, the answer is *No*.

2nd question: did you record those information in the mostly expected
registry key, ie HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\MiKTeX.org\MiKTeX?

Once again, I can answer for you and the answer is still *No*

Actually, if you could provide the bin path in registry, it's still better
than nothing (more on this point below)  Would you consider providing it?


> Programs like "TeXstudio" have no problem finding where MiKTeX
> is hiding whether it is a 32 or 64 bit system or a 32 bit install on a
> 64 bit system. I can confirm that.


It depends on your definition of "no problem", ie that doesn't mean they
are able to do it without difficulties.  I'm pretty sure they have to
*hack* one of the paths to some exe or dll file to get the path up to the
"\" character.

For example, I had found this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\MiKTeX.dvi.2.9

But think about it, when MiKTeX version changes to say 3.0, their hack
would not work anymore.  Well, unless they had anticipated this and cast a
"wide net" to include all possibilities for
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\MiKTeX.dvi.x.y

Nevertheless, this is still a heck and personally, if I needed to program
an exhaustive search like this, I wouldn't employ the words "no problem" to
describe the work I had to provide to get to the result.


> It sounds to me like the EqualX
> installer either doesn't check or is improperly configured. Again, I
> have no idea what they are using for an installer.
>

No, it has nothing to do with installer.  Or at least, it is not
necessarily related to the installer -- it is a runtime config issue.

Between registry and environment variable, it's preferable to use env var.
Suppose such variable is defined:
* we don't need special function/API to get registry keys and values.  In
batch files as well as in dynamic expansion, one only needs to use %xxxxxx%
and that's it!  You see how convenience that is?

* Especially in batch file, AFAIK, we need to write several lines of codes
(or equivalently a long instruction) to get a value from a registry key.
And that's very prone to error.  Very inconvenient.

*  Using env vars is more Unix-like style

* If a program (or batch file) is using env vars dynamic expansion (ie
%xxxxxx%), users can install a newer versions of MiKTeX without fearing
that dependent programs might be broken because the var is always pointing
to the good directory and the variable is evaluated at runtime.

But once again, if you could provide registry key to the path only, it's
still good.
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