Re: psql 8.0 final not working on NT 4.0sp6

From: John DeSoi <desoi(at)pgedit(dot)com>
To: "Magnus Hagander" <mha(at)sollentuna(dot)net>
Cc: "pgsql-hackers" <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Re: psql 8.0 final not working on NT 4.0sp6
Date: 2005-01-18 19:09:36
Message-ID: 7EE25CE5-6984-11D9-9D5C-000A95B03262@pgedit.com
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Hi Magnus,

On Jan 18, 2005, at 1:34 PM, Magnus Hagander wrote:

> 1) Declare NT4 without IE4 unsupported. This is by far the easiest :P
> What we'd do later is add a check to the MSI installer to inform the
> user about this.

Seems a bit gross to say that NT4 is supported, but only if you happen
to have a really old version of IE (or you happened to install it and
choose the right option somewhere along your way to a later IE
version). If I read the MS page correctly, having IE 4 installed does
not guarantee things will work. You must have chosen the option to
install Windows Desktop Update. I would not be surprised if I did this
-- I hate the Windows explorer interfaces that tries to make everything
look like a web page :).

>
> 2) Revert to the pre-8.0 behaviour with the files. This is IMHO a very
> bad idea, because that was not well-behaved on *current* Windows
> platforms.

Is it not possible to add a version check and just use the old method
with Windows NT?

What is this function call used to get other than the user's home
directory?

>
> 3) Change to using SHGetFolderPath() linked from shfolder.dll (note
> that
> this function exists in two different dlls. We'd need the one in
> shfolder.dll to have any effect). And then point people who don't have
> shfolder.dll to the Microsoft download site for this file (it's
> redistributable, but only in an unmodified self-extracting file, so we
> can't easily embed it in the installer. can be done, but not as easy as
> one would like). It will be required on most systems running 95, 98 and
> NT4 (without it we'll be broken on 95 and 98, which work today). The
> file is included on current windows versions by default. This is
> probably the nicest idea, but I'm not sure how much work we want to
> throw into the NT4 support. Considering MS has stopped supporting it
> even to their pay-through-the-nose-for-support customers by now. (and
> we
> *do* work on NT4 as long as the user has installed IE4)
>

I certainly understand not wanting to spend a bunch of time on NT
support. But everything seemed fine through 8.0.0-rc1, so I would hate
to see it go away over this one issue. I did not realize that 95/98
worked at all. I don't think anyone really wants to setup a server on
95, 98, or even NT4, but it would be really nice if psql would work.

John DeSoi, Ph.D.
http://pgedit.com/
Power Tools for PostgreSQL

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