Re: Re: [pavlik to poogimmal]

My point was precisely that installing software is
*not* (necessarily) "a system-wide change" and that
for the software itself to make it obligately so is
neither necessary nor desirable.

The purpose of having limited users is to protect the
rest of the system from buggy or malicious software
(or users). An installation routine -- especially an
exe program as opposed to a script that I could read
-- can just as easily be buggy or malicious as the
main program it installs, so in principle I see no
difference between the two. In fact, not only is Abi
(like all large programs) perpetually full of bugs, we
have just been told that there aren't the time and
resources to do the installation routine really
carefully and correctly; so why stake the whole system
on its being perfect enough to be safe to run as
Administrator?

Sure, there are programs that really must be installed
administratively but can then be run by ordinary
users; what I said was that a word processor isn't one
of those. And yes, after thorough testing and
confidence, one might want to reinstall as
administrator to promote a piece of software to
system-wide status; but for maximal safety the initial
installation should be done, if possible, as a limited
user, and there is nothing desirable about making this
unnecessarily impossible.

I wonder: Is it really necessary to have a "patch" to
the installation routine, or is the business simple
enough that one could simply have documentation, in
natural language, about how to install by hand?

--- abiryan@ryand.net wrote:
 
>
> Actually, you are confusing two different issues
> here. Running the word
> processor doesn't require administrator priveleges,
> as expected.
> Installation (a system-wide change), however, does
> require
> administrator privileges, and this is desired (and
> necessary). One
> doesn't want a limited user installing programs,
> this is in fact often
> the reason that limited users are set up in Windows.
> If limited users
> aren't restricted from installing software, which is
> a major
> system-administration action, what use is the
> designation of limited
> user?
>
> AbiWord does work in such a situation, where the
> software is installed
> by the system administrator, and used by any number
> of limited users.
> I know, I use it this way on several Windows 2000
> machines.
 

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Received on Thu Aug 18 02:32:45 2005