Re: Issue 1948 in lilypond: Windows install clobbered system PATH

[lilypond]

Comment #12 on issue 1948 by address@hidden: Windows install  
clobbered system PATH
http://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=1948

I've spent quite a while looking at this today, and can report the  
following strange stuff.

When lily is installed, the installer writes the path to the binary to this  
registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session  
Manager\Environment\Path

which is indeed where windows stores the DOS PATH variable.  If you do  
Control Panel... System... Advanced System Settings... Environment  
Variables you should see tae new value in the path env. variable.  However,  
for some bizarre reason running a DOS box doesn't return that value - it  
returns the old one.  You need to reboot to get Lilypond into the DOS box  
path variable.  My experience is that this kind of behaviour is also  
replicated in the way Lily adds its path to the path statement - if you  
rarely reboot (like me) but install lily often (like me) you get a mishmash  
of lilypond path statements in the DOS path.

Anyway, I've also been installing and uninstalling like mad, and the other  
notable fact is that unistalling does not get rid of any registry changes  
installing created.  It seems to me that this is the real bug - users can't  
expect to run path statements that are grossly long and have lily avoid the  
DOS problem of truncating them.  However, if you install lots of versions  
of lily, it should keep adding to the path - our routine should be to tell  
users to uninstall the old version and install the new and then the major  
problem with go away.

Just noting this lot for reference - going to did into GUB to see what I  
can find there next.