Zugg Software :: View topic

Posted: Fri Jul 28, 2006 11:43 pm

Vitae, the reason is that if you use multiple user accounts in Windows XP, you might have two different users that play the same MUD and use different settings. This causes the settings file from one user to get overwritten by the settings file for the other user. Both users also see the same list of session icons instead of their own session list.

Basically, this is left over from the old single-user days and needs to be updated to properly support multi-user operating systems like XP and Vista. Also, "proper" Windows applications are not supposed to install themselves into top-level directories, and I'm trying to make CMUD behave more properly.

Wizard Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 1551 Location: Australia

It might not hurt to check HKCU \ Software \ ZuggSoft \ CMUD \ DataDir to see if CMUD has been run by that user account then when you start CMUD for the first time as that account prompt for the 'where do you want your files saved' at that point, rather than in the installer. Also allow a 'change data file directory' button which will ask 'do you want to copy your existing data files to the new directory or start fresh' and also check to see if there are already data files there and ask 'do you want to change to using these files, or erase them and start fresh'.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

When I installed Civilization 4, which I suspect is considered an XP SP2 friendly installer, it created the following folders (I accepted the defaults):
C:\Documents and Settings\Seb\My Documents\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 (My Games and down)
C:\Documents and Settings\Seb\Application Data\My Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 (My Games and down)
C:\Program Files\Firaxis Games\Sid Meier's Civilization 4 (Firaxis Games and down)

The program files location contains shortcuts to the other locations, but obviously they only work for the user who installed the game or an administrator. Nevertheless, they serve as helpful reminders that data is stored elsewhere. The application data location contains some dat files in a cache sub-folder that are presumably unimportant and are regenerated either when installing, checking for updates or some other routine operation. The My Games area contains the stuff that is both user specific and would be useful to back up, e.g. Saved games, mods, maps, screenshots, logs, etc..

It was a bit unexpected for me, but I think this is a good design. It keeps all your game data together, so doesn't clutter up My Documents with lots of folders, but has the data in a handy place for backups, supports multi-users properly, and is made such that the game can be used by limited users (although higher privileges are required to install the game - Power User, I'm pretty sure).

Hope this helps.

Edit:
I can't remember whether I was asked 3 questions about where to install to, or just 1 or 2, btw. But I consider these to be the ideal default locations for Win 2k and higher, but I think giving the option to change all three when installing should be made into a simple and easy task for the user.

Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 12:56 am

Agree with Rainchild. I hate the guts of documents and settings, keeping the option to save user data within install folder would be much appreciated. As the only user on my PC, I'm not going to have problems with other users overwriting my packages or not having priviledges writing something somewhere.

Posted: Sat Jul 29, 2006 1:26 am

hav, there will definitely be an option to keep the user data in the program folder. That's also the way I prefer it. Heck, I prefer C:\CMUD myself, even though Microsoft says they don't like that. So even though I'm trying to improve CMUD to "play nicely" in Windows, even I prefer it the old way Razz

Rainchild, that's a good idea. I certainly have a lot more control and flexibility doing the initial setup within CMUD rather than within the installer.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Also some programs, when you install them, ask whether you want to install them for all users or just the current user. Installation for all users requires higher privileges than just the current user and puts files in different places, I think.

And some programs, like MS Office, do a bunch of initialisation / set-up - copying files, registry entries, etc. when you first run them with a new user.

Beginner Joined: 24 Nov 2002 Posts: 20 Location: Australia

My Documents\My Games\CMUD\*.*

Why in My Games instead of making a "My Muds" folder - because as much as I hate that folder, it IS the convention to store the information for your various games in there now, and the one thing I hate more than all the different My folders we already have is getting another one which is quite capable of being classified under one of the others (its the same reason I think My Pictures/Music/Videos should be subfolders in a My Media folder).

Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 8:43 am

Tornhelm I think you might be forgetting one thing. Eventually CMUD (CSSH, cTelnet or what ever it will be dubbed) will not necessarily be classified as a 'game' for an admin who uses it to do scripting to *nix client or other text based screens.

There has already been some interest expressed in this and I'm sure business who will look to CMUD for this functionality may not care for their data to be under a games folder.

Of course that could all be moot since CSSH or cTelnet et al could probably just have a custom installation that initializes folders differently.

My $0.01

GURU Joined: 26 Jul 2001 Posts: 1958 Location: Canada

I think the key here is for the new user. I`m personnally a C:\cMUD fan, kinda.

I mirror my C: so all my programs are on raided on D: and data raided on E:

So for me my zMud is in E:\GAMES\Mud\Clients\zMud. But then I`m far from the norm.

The other is to set the ACLs as the install has to be done with an admin account anyhow from a freeware install:

REM This file is required because changing NTFS file permissions in .NET is a right royal pain in the ass.
cacls . /T /E /G BUILTIN\Users:C