[Python-Dev] Distutils2 scripts (original) (raw)

"Martin v. Löwis" martin at v.loewis.de
Tue Oct 12 22:36:30 CEST 2010


Assume, for the sake of the argument, that we patched the MSI so it (optionally) added the installing version of Python (and, optionally ./scripts) to the PATH. What, then, do we do with existing PATH entries which point to older/other Python installations? Option (a) says: clear them all out, because it's meaningless having more than one entry with a python.exe on it and the one we want must be this one because we've just ticked a box to say so. Option (b) says: don't mess with other entries on the PATH; it's not done.

That, too. For the registry settings, overwriting them is an easy choice: it was the other installer that wrote the original entries (very likely so), so we "own" them and we can overwrite them. Running a repair installation on the original installer will revert that.

With the PATH entry, it's not such an easy choice: the old entry may have been manually added, or it may have been added by the previous installer. Replacing it in the second case is again a straight-forward choice, but we don't know (unless we record somewhere - in the registry

Regards, Martin



More information about the Python-Dev mailing list