Re: NSHomeDirectory() problems on windows

[Jeremy Bettis]

I think that the makefile package should convert the long names to short
names, and the userprofile is good.

However, windows checks $HOMEDRIVE/$HOMEPATH first and $USERPROFILE
secondly.

You will notice this by running Start->Run... cmd.exe on an account which
has a home directory set, you are started in the home dir.  However if there
is no home directory you end up in the User Profile path.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Frith-Macdonald" <address@hidden>
To: "Roland Schwingel" <address@hidden>
Cc: <address@hidden>; <address@hidden>
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 10:38 AM
Subject: Re: NSHomeDirectory() problems on windows


>
> On Monday, July 21, 2003, at 02:20 PM, Roland Schwingel wrote:
>
> > Hi...
> >
> > A while ago in NSUser.m the way changed how the users homedirectory is
> > depicted. Before this change the implementation was much like the
> > Openstep for Windows one. Constructing it out of  $HOMEPATH and
> > $HOMEDRIVE. Now it is changed to first query $USERPROFILE (which so
> > violates the OpenStep specification). And if not found fall back to
> > old (in my eyes correct implementation).
> >
> > By the way there is maybe a bug in the current implementation for
> > asking $USERPROFILE. After retrieving the environmentvariable it is
> > checked to not contain spaces. Well at least in german versions of
> > Windows 2000 and Windows XP there are spaces by default. $USERPROFILE
> > in german versions of windows always contains "Dokumente und
> > Einstellungen". So it would be never used here, but elsewehere....
>
> That's because the makefile package *must* agree with the base library
> about the users home directory, and spaces in paths used by make can
> easily break the package ... we can't accept a directory path
> containing spaces for the home directory.
>
> I think the default setup in english has spaces in there too ... so I'm
> not sure that there is much point using $USERPROFILE at all... it
> probably doesn't work for the vast majority of users.
>
> > I personally hate the way windows userprofiles work. We use
> > NSHomeDirectory() here as basepath for our resources, which should
> > never ever reside in the userprofile at least because of their size.
> > So we really rely on this to not point to $USERPROFILE.
> >
> > So what to do? I think this wasn't changed out of pure fun... Even I
> > would like to have it back again to be compliant to the openstep for
> > windows version, I suggest to make it eventually switchable. For
> > example using a new environment variable (eg.
> > GNUSTEP_WIN32_HOMEDIRSTYLE). If it is missing (or set to "profile")
> > the current behaviour is used. If set to eg. "openstep" it is no
> > longer queried for $USERPROFILE instead the HOMEPATH/HOMEDRIVE variant
> > will be used directly...
>
> I think this was changed because a windows user said it should work
> that way (since it's microsofts official method for finding the home
> directory), and nobody on the discussion list said otherwise.  I'd
> quite happily either remove the usage of USERPROFILE altogether, (as I
> don't know if it's ever usable in practice).
> What do other windows users think?
>
>
>
>
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