[tex-live] On Windows, install TL for all users by default

[Reinhard Kotucha]

On 2014-02-10 at 19:21:18 +0100, Denis Bitouzé wrote:

 > You probably spent 5 minutes for reading and answering my email. I
 > spent about one hour for the administrative requirements needed to
 > borrow the laptop, install TL and write this email. Please
 > double-check your claims before claiming I'm wasting time!

It doesn't make much sense here to bargain about minutes or hours.

It's a matter of fact that Siep spent an enourmous amount of time on
the Windows specific parts of TeX Live since 2007.  Everything is more
difficult on Windows than on any other platform for several reasons.
And the fact that each version of Windows is quite different from its
predecessors causes a lot of extra work.  Furthermore, Siep also makes
sure that her scripts are not restricted to a particular version of
Windows, hence even testing is extremely time-consuming.

Thus I think that it doesn't matter how much time she spent to answer
your mail.  I'm very grateful for everything she did.  Without her we
probably have network installations and package updates today on all
systems except Windows.

Denis, I assume that you didn't know all this.  In the future, please
let us avoid discussions about who spent how much time.

As to your subject line:

 > On Windows, install TL for all users by default

Until 2007 the TeX Live installer for Windows supported only
single-user single-platform installations.  When I suggested to make
all features we had on Unix at this time available to Windows too,
someone said "forget about the multi-user stuff, Windows machines are
_always_ single-user".

I'm glad that Windows users can decide by themselves now. But you see,
opinions are quite different.  And I fear that there is no way to make
all Windows users happy by just changing a few default settings.

Regards,
  Reinhard

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Reinhard Kotucha                                      Phone: +49-511-3373112
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Microsoft isn't the answer. Microsoft is the question, and the answer is NO.
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