I have some problems with SCID on Windows. I have been using it for a
while now, principally to observe games on FICS.
There is a problem when kibitzing (or, probably, typing any commands).
Every time I try to enter a period, the period enters okay, but the
board flips. If I try to enter a move for black, say ... e4, it flips
three times. It's very difficult to transcribe information from the
board to my comments.
There is a problem with focus. Windows which do not accept keyboard
input nevertheless get focus, and I regularly find myself typing away to
no effect.
Arguably more serious is where it stores users' options.
Children at the school where I work play chess, and they are permitted
(at suitable times) to use the computers to play chess.
Their profiles (including their documents, preferences and so on) are
stored on a Windows 2003 Server. This means that, whichever computer
they logon with, all their documents, cookies, program settings and so
on, are there. When they logoff, it's all synchronised back to the server.
I can, and do, reinstall Windows on their computers at any time. Any
data on the computers is discarded. We have a "Standard System Image.
SCID represents a special problem for us, and I will not install it on
that account. It stores users' settings in a system directory under
\Program Files\SCID\someplace.
Only administrators may write there, and there is no prospect that our
students will be permitted administrator privileges. They cannot even
open those areas in Windows Explorer.
As a matter of safety, nobody (and I include myself here) should be
using an administrator account on a Windows (or other!) computer for
their daily computing. Instead, they should create an administrator
account, and then separate limited accounts for each other user. This
provides a fair degree of safety from most malware, and privacy
regarding their personal data such as financial records.
Windows NT and its successors provide this security, providing one uses
NTFS (there is no security with any FAT filesystem, and so no security
with Windows 9x/ME).
Windows has some system calls to locate users' profiles (and some other
data), but in the case of a program such as SCID I would probably use
environment variables.
I have examined the source code for SCID and I think it needs changes
around here in SCID.GUI:
148 set scidExecutable [info nameofexecutable]
149 if {[file type $scidExecutable] == "link"} {
150 set scidExeDir [file dirname [file readlink $scidExecutable]]
151 } else {
152 set scidExeDir [file dirname $scidExecutable]
153 }
154
155 # scidUserDir: location of user-specific Scid files.
156 # This is "~/.scid" on Unix, and the Scid exectuable dir on Windows.
157 if {$windowsOS} {
158 set scidUserDir $scidExeDir
159 } else {
160 set scidUserDir [file nativename "~/.scid"]
161 }
162
163 # scidConfigDir, scidDataDir, scidLogDir:
164 # Location of Scid configuration, data and log files.
165 set scidConfigDir [file nativename [file join $scidUserDir
"config"]]
166 set scidDataDir [file nativename [file join $scidUserDir "data"]]
167 set scidLogDir [file nativename [file join $scidUserDir "log"]]
168
I am not at all familiar with TCL, but I think that scidUserDir should
be set from the environment variable, APPDATA.
The directories names are different on Windows 7, but I'm pretty sure
the same environment variable works.
If course, the relevant subdirectories need to be created and filled as
on *x.
On _This_ PC, I've granted myself persmission to modify a few files that
SCID uses, but I am not going to do it regularly.
See
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb530410.aspx#vistauac_topic1
"Many Windows applications require that the logged on user be an
administrator but do not actually require administrator-level access.
These applications perform a variety of administrator access checks
before being permitted to run, including:
* Administrator access token check.
* "All access" access requests in system protected locations.
* Write data to protected locations, such as %ProgramFiles%,
%WinDir%, and HKLM\Software."
The following was written in 2003, when XP was new.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms811696.aspx
Scroll down to
The following file/path conventions should be adhered to
but the rest might be useful too.
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