GNU bug report logs - #68160
29.1; Windows installer: add Emacs bin directory to PATH

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Message #11 received at 68160 <at> debbugs.gnu.org (full text, mbox):

From: Stefan Kangas <stefankangas <at> gmail.com>
To: Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org>
Cc: Michael Hoffman <emacs-hoffman <at> snkmail.com>, Corwin Brust <corwin <at> bru.st>,
 68160 <at> debbugs.gnu.org
Subject: Re: bug#68160: 29.1;
 Windows installer: add Emacs bin directory to PATH
Date: Thu, 11 Jan 2024 12:58:50 -0800

Eli Zaretskii <eliz <at> gnu.org> writes:

>> Date: Sat, 30 Dec 2023 23:59:55 +0000
>> From: "Michael Hoffman" <emacs-hoffman <at> snkmail.com>
>>
>> Could the Windows installer add $INSTDIR\emacs-${VERSION_BRANCH}\bin to
>> PATH?
>>
>> I've started installing Emacs on Windows via WinGet, which is very nice,
>> and so much works out of the box, but Emacs commands are not added to
>> PATH like they are with Chocolatey. Currently, WinGet does not support
>> adding to PATH for packages with an installer, like Emacs.
>>
>> If not, would it be possible to add an option to the installer to do
>> this? A WinGet package could include that as a custom installer option
>> <https://github.com/microsoft/winget-pkgs/blob/master/doc/manifest/schema/1.5.0/installer.md>.
>
> This is up to the person who maintains the Windows install kit for
> Emacs, but IMO this should be an optional feature.  On many Windows
> systems, changing the environment variables is a privileged operation,
> dictated by policy, and will be rejected.  Moreover, modern Windows
> systems maintain two lists of Path values: one for the current user
> and another that is system-wide, and there are various limitations
> about changing each one.
>
> When I install software via an installer, I generally don't want it to
> modify my PATH, because those installers have no idea how I manage my
> PATH.  For starters, should the Emacs's bin directory be prepended or
> appended to the existing PATH value?  That is not a trivial question
> to answer, since the Emacs installer comes with DLLs and executables
> other than Emacs, and those might interfere with other software
> installed on the system.
>
> There be dragons!
>
> OTOH, manually adding the bin directory to your PATH, if you have that
> privilege, is easy enough.

Corwin, any comments here?

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