[tex-live] (Installation Problem)

Philip TAYLOR Philip-and-LeKhanh at Royal-Tunbridge-Wells.Org
Thu Feb 19 00:18:23 CET 2009



Steve MC Han wrote:
> Hi Philip,
>  
> Thank you for your detailed responses.

You're welcome.  I'm keeping the TeX-Live
team copied in on this, because they are
the ones who will need to bail you out
if I get stuck :-)

> There is no C:\Program, instead there is C:\Program1 (it was created by 
> PC when it was turned on after installation) which contains many tex 
> related files such as
>  
> bibtex
> bin
> dvips
> fonts
> metapost

That is /very/ interesting.  I think that TeX Live 2008
would have created higher-level directories than those,
call things such as "texmf-dist".  If you have no such
directory, then the TeX installation under C:\Program1
is possibly nothing to do with TeX Live but is perhaps
related to some other TeX installation (e.g., MikTeX).

> C:\>set
[...]
> Path=C:\Windows\system32;C:\Windows;C:\Windows\System32\Wbem;C:\Program 
> Files\Co
> mmon Files\Roxio Shared\DLLShared;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Roxio 
> Shared\DLL
> Shared;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Roxio 
> Shared\9.0\DLLShared;C:\Program Files
> \ESTsoft\ALZip;C:\Program Files\ESTsoft\ALZip;C:\Program 
> Files\texlive\2008\bin\
> win32;C:\Program\bin\win32
[...]
> C:\>

Also interesting : two different places where TeX executables
will be sought (C:\Program Files\texlive\2008\bin\win32; C:\Program\bin\win32)

It looks as if you have two installations, one of which
may work (the one under C:\Program Files\texlive\2008)
and one of which almost certainly won't.

> I installed WinEdt, besides I tried more than once, so it might be too 
> late to go back. Since this is a new PC, there's nothing in it, I could 
> format the hard disk again, but I don't know how.

If that's all you've done, you could safely use
a system restore point and lose WinEDT + TeX Live.
>  
> 5) Let us know where you are located; there may be
>    a TeX expert nearby about whom you currently do not know.
> I am in Los Angeles California, USA

I'm sure there are many TeX users there; are you
at a University/College, or working from home ?
>  
> 6) Consider throwing Vista in your waste bin and get a
>    copy of Windows/XP Professional (SP3) instead.  Vista
>    is going to cause you nothing but grief :-(((
> That might cause the problem. Even during when I was downloading 
> TexLive, it constantly asking "require updating Windows and it will 
> automatically be turned off in 10 minutes to update", etc. In fact it 
> did once in the middle of downloading.

Oh wonderful.  Vista is the worst nightmare since Windows ME :-(((
>  
>  
> 7) Note that none of the above involve you in doing anything
>    potentially dangerous /at this stage/; just carry out the
>    tests (and the memory exercise) and report back here
>    before you do anything that is likely to endanger your system.
>  
> Thank you for your detailed diagnosis and nice advices.

My pleasure, Steve.  I'll stop here (it's late, and I
don't think too clearly after 23:00) and if no-one has
made any useful suggestions by tomorrow, I'll try to
carry on where we left off.

** Phil.


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