[Haskell-cafe] Cabal install on Windows 7

[Duncan Coutts]

On Tue, 2009-09-08 at 09:58 -0500, Jeff Wheeler wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 8, 2009 at 9:17 AM, Peter Verswyvelen<bugfact at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> > Ouch, right, I forgot the default is global. It works fine with cabal
> > install --user. And of course I could have edited the default config
> > file, setting user-install: True
> >
> > Well, maybe for newbies this might be a bit confusing.
> 
> Yep, I agree. I'm not sure why Cabal defaults to --global on Windows,
> but I found it quite counter-intuitive having come from a Linux
> environment. I forgot about the different default for some time.

It was because last time we discussed this, the Windows users seemed to
be of the opinion that things were simpler with global installs since
the %PATH% would be right by default and "everyone runs as Administrator
anyway". That may well be different now.

If the Windows users can come to a consensus on whether the default
should be global or user, then we can easily switch it. The same applies
for the default global or user installation paths.

If there are any Windows users who understand the Windows permissions
system then the Cabal hackers would appreciate some help. As it is the
Cabal hackers have no access to Vista or Win7 and cannot test what is
actually going on with Windows permissions or pop-up windows prompting
whether it's ok to do this or that.

Duncan