[Python-Dev] Windows installer - File associations in "per user" installs

[Steve Dower]

It's a bug. File and assign to me please.

Top-posted from my Windows Phone
________________________________
From: Paul Moore<mailto:p.f.moore at gmail.com>
Sent: ‎3/‎10/‎2015 3:35
To: Steve Dower<mailto:Steve.Dower at microsoft.com>
Cc: Python Dev<mailto:python-dev at python.org>
Subject: Windows installer - File associations in "per user" installs

On 9 March 2015 at 15:37, Steve Dower <Steve.Dower at microsoft.com> wrote:
>> Maybe the answer is that we simply start recommending that everyone on Windows
>> uses per-user installs. It makes little difference to me (beyond the fact that
>> when I want to look at the source of something in the stdlib, the location of
>> the file is a lot harder to remember than C:\Apps\Python34\Lib\whatever.py) but
>> I doubt it's what most people will expect.
>
> I'm okay with this. Installing for all users is really something that could be considered an advanced option rather than the default, especially since the aim (AIUI) of the all-users install is to pretend that Python was shipped with the OS. (I'd kind of like to take that further by splitting things more sensibly between Program Files, Common Files and System32, but there's very little gain from that and much MUCH pain as long as people are still expecting C:\PythonXY installs...)

I've just tried a per-user install of Python 3.5a2. The machine in
question previously had (and still has) a system install of 3.4, with
"Make this Python the default" selected (so the .py extension is
associated with that version and specifically the 3.4 launcher).

I didn't get the option to associate .py files with 3.5 (there's *no
way* I'd consider that to be advanced usage - if I'm installing
Python, why wouldn't I want to associate it with .py files [1]) and I
still seem to have .py associated with the 3.4 launcher, not the 3.5
one that's in my %APPDATA% folder.

    >cmd /c assoc .py
    .py=Python.File
    >cmd /c ftype python.file
    python.file="C:\WINDOWS\py.exe" "%1" %*

I'm happy if a per-user install of 3.5 makes a per-user filetype
association (assuming such a thing is possible, I've never tried it
before) but it's absolutely not OK if we're planning on recommending
an install type that doesn't create the right association.

Paul

[1] Given that I have 3.4 and am installing an experimental 3.5
version, it's not actually at all clear cut which version I want as my
default. In all honesty, I don't think this decision is actually
something that should be defaulted. Maybe the "don't make the user
make any choices in the default selection" approach has gone a little
too far here?
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