[Tutor] RE: idle not starting up..

[Kirby Urner]

>
>The RubyWin Installer doesn't clean up after itself (not unlike my
>children...which would be funny if it weren't so true....heh).

Note: *many* Windows programs don't undo stuff they do in
your AUTOEXEC, even via their uninstallers -- this is in no
way all that unusual.

>The well-behaved Installers will revert completely, changing the
>entries to their previous values and returning the backed-up files
>(if specified) to their original locations.

With AUTOEXEC, this could be a problem, as many programs alter
it and make a backup.  If the Ruby uninstaller went back and
restored AUTOEXEC.RUBY, from the time it installed, you could
be in big trouble, given all the interim changes to AUTOEXEC
that might have happened in the meantime.  The only way the
uninstaller could work would be to parse the file and remove
parts of it.  A very well-behaved program will (a) tell you
what it plans on doing and (b) show you what the changes would
look like ahead of time.  Very few bother.

I just went through a long session purging my AUTOEXEC of
unwanted path subdirectories this morning.  Some kept
reappearing, I think because of stuff in the registry.
The AUTOEXEC would actually change, even after I'd edit
it -- even after I write-protected it even.

>Unfortunately, the Ruby Installer is not well-behaved.

I think you should let go of blaming the Ruby Installer
-- it's your responsibility, at the end of the day, to
clean up the AUTOEXEC file.  Uninstallers only do so much.
They'll also leave DLLs behind, or tell you they *seem*
to be unused by other programs but you might want to
leave them just in case -- no help at all to the user,
as no one keeps all these dependencies in their heads,
or even written down.

>I just uninstalled it from my W2K system, and it left all of
>the environment variables untouched; also, there's still
>an entry in the registry.

Which would be enough to mess with the AUTOEXEC on
Windows ME.  I'd purge all mention of D:\PROGRA~1\ACCPAC\RUNTIME
yet there it'd be, on the very next boot, until I scoured
the registry.

Kirby

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