[issue1284316] Win32: Security problem with default installation directory

[Fran Rogers]

Fran Rogers <fran at dumetella.net> added the comment:

I'd like to concur that Python should install to %ProgramFiles% by default. The root-directory default is particularly anomalous on 64-bit Windows, where you have separate 64- and 32-bit Program Files directories; if I have a Python installation in "C:\Python26", is it amd64 Python or x86 Python? If I want to install both (since many packages don't yet support amd64), which one should I install to \Python26 and which should I rename?

As mel's post above (2005-11-15 11:39) points out, installing to C:\ is comparable to installing to /python2.6 on a Unix box; it's nonstandard, inelegant, and prone to ACL problems like the one this bug was opened for. If convenience on the command line (for non-power-users unfamiliar with %Path%) is the concern, a better solution would be a checkbox in the installer to add the new Python to the system %Path%.

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nosy: +fran.rogers

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<http://bugs.python.org/issue1284316>
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