For 10 years, Lotus existed happily without needing a single entry in the Registry, and was all the better for it. Now suddenly in R6, we can’t live without it!
The people at Iris who made this decision should be made to read nothing but the Collective Wisdom of William H Gates III 24 hours a day for 3 months, and consider it light punishment. Shame on you!
Subject: You should have thought this one through more…
Henry,
Your post later in the thread mentioned why you’re really having problems. You didn’t install the client’s in the correct order. Install the earliest required release first - then the newer releases - and the situation you mentioned would not have occurred (my machine, Win2K, Notes 3, 4.11, 4.67, 5.12, 6.02, 6.5 - all running simultaneously, AND NOTHING ABOUT NOTES IN THE REGISTRY!!)
Even better - IT’S NOTES!!! YOU DO NOT HAVE TO INSTALL THIS SOFTWARE!!
Just copy an older release from another machine onto the box you want it on and then delete the configuration files.
For those who came in late…</lee falk>
The configuration files are:
Names.nsf
Log.nsf
Bookmark.nsf
Journal.nsf
Headlines.nsf
Perweb.nsf
Desktop
Cache
mail.box
The user ID file(s)
And then delete everything out of the notes.ini after the “Directory=” line.
Please don’t blame great software for your own lack of foresight, it scares the newbies!
Regards,
Mat
Subject: RE: You should have thought this one through more…
So if I have it right, you say “never install Notes on the machine you’re going to use it on”. Wow! That’s wisdom! The newbies will thank you!
About my approach, you’re 100% right, blessed as you are with perfect hindsight. For poor mortals like me, however, who actually work for a living in the real world, things aren’t that simple.
For one thing, your statement that there’s nothing in the registry after installing all those versions needs validation!
For another, the trick you quoted of moving versions around wasn’t invented by you, I for one have been using it for (I’m prepared to bet) a lot longer than you have, but in R6 it DOESN’T WORK, because there’s entries in the registry that tells Windows where to look for certain objects.
Subject: Clarification, not a flame 
Hi Henry,
So if I have it right, you say “never install Notes on the machine you’re going to use it on”. Wow! That’s wisdom! The newbies will thank you!
I actually said … “AND NOTHING ABOUT NOTES IN THE REGISTRY”, not “Never install notes”. Since I knew I was going to have multiple versions of Notes and Domino running on my workstation I chose not to install the software to avoid any of the issues you have mentioned.
About my approach, you’re 100% right, blessed as you are with perfect hindsight. For poor mortals like me, however, who actually work for a living in the real world, things aren’t that simple.
Yes things are that simple, thus my initial reply subject…
For one thing, your statement that there’s nothing in the registry after installing all those versions needs validation!
I never said I Installed the software!
Sic: “Just copy an older release from another machine onto the box you want it on and then delete the configuration files.”
BTW - I should have said “any release”, instead of “older release” - my error - sorry!
For another, the trick you quoted of moving versions around wasn’t invented by you, I for one have been using it for (I’m prepared to bet) a lot longer than you have, but in R6 it DOESN’T WORK, because there’s entries in the registry that tells Windows where to look for certain objects.
a) Of course I didn’t invent the “trick”, the very clever people at Iris did!
b) If you’ve been using it for so long, why didn’t you do it this time?
c) Um - 1992; V2, teaching since 1995 (Does that make a difference if you’re the one who posted the problem?).
d) Which objects? I must be missing some very important functionality If I have two versions of 6 (C/D/A) running on my machine, where neither were “installed”.
Regards,
Mat
Subject: Registry - why, oh why, oh why!!!
Moving installs around and running multiple versions works just fine with R6. The Windows Installer just makes you learn some new tricks to make it work. The registry really isn’t the culprit.The trick with the R6 stuff is to install a version, then move it to a new folder. Then you need to create new shortcuts, you can’t use the one’s it installs, because those are controlled by Windows Installer. Just create new shortcuts to nlnotes.exe pointing at the INI file you want.
It works just fine, and the stuff in the registry really doesn’t play into much unless you are using COM. I am running 3 different versions of R6 along with R5…
Subject: Registry - why, oh why, oh why!!!
What registry key are referring to?
I routinely copy client and server installs from one machine to another without having to modify the registry in any way. (Note: this is not an endorsement of this behavior)
Subject: RE: Registry - why, oh why, oh why!!!
Don’t even try to list the Registry entries. Just to illustrate, try instaling an earlier version of Notes Client on a machine that has R6. Suddenly, nothing works. Delete R6, and re-install, and it defaults all kinds of actions to the R5 entries. I ended up having to uninstall both, clean out my registry and start all over again. Disgusting!
Subject: RE: Registry - why, oh why, oh why!!!
Welcome to the wonderful world of the Windows Installer Service!
Installing two different versions of the Notes client is not a support configuration, but I don’t understand your “Suddenly, nothing works” comment. What exactly doesn’t work? And what “all kinds of actions” do you mean?
If you want to rant that’s fine, it’s your right, but if you want to either understand what is really happening and/or help make the product better you are going to have to be more specific.
Subject: Ranting??? Me???
OK, here’s a case in point. I installed R6 client. Then I needed R5, so I installed that, in a different directory just like the good old days. Now WindowsInstaller knows that R6 is in the OS path (why) and knows there’s another notes.ini (why) and renames it (why).
So I try to recover, renaming my R6 notes.ini back, and pointing the R5 logo specifically to its own .ini. But you can’t do that for R6, that option is greyed out (why), so now R6 is pointing to the R5 .ini.
So I uninstall R6, and reinstall, but the install put the data components in the R5 data directory - yes, I did specify the right data directory, but installer doesn’t care (it gets that bit of info from the registry).
Do you want me to go on ranting? A whole day lost, and no-one can tell me yet what we’ve gained by using the registry.
Subject: RE: Ranting??? Me???
Hmm. Never had a problem here. Currently (since I am a contract programmer/Administrator) I have 9 instances of R6 and 2 instances of R5 all running on my laptop. And because all my clients seem to have problems at the same time, I can have them all run concurrently (Or until my memory gets used up and my laptop barfs).
I do what someone else here suggests. I let the installer load it wherever it wants, then I move it to where I want and build new pointers to new INI files. If I like where it is, I just copy the data folder over and over again for every client, putting the INI file in the data folder and pointing the icon shortcut to that.
Blah blah blah. Life is grand.
Greg
Subject: RE: Ranting??? Me???
OK, here’s a case in point. I installed R6 client. Then I needed R5, so I installed that, in a different directory just like the good old days. Now WindowsInstaller knows that R6 is in the OS path (why)
The N6 installer didn’t modify the registry to change the environment path, if that is what you mean by the “OS path”. If that is not what you mean then I have no idea what you are referring too?
and knows there’s another notes.ini (why) and renames it (why).
You installed a older version of Notes which knows nothing about later versions of Notes and you installed it to a different directory and you are asking why there is another notes.ini? The R5 installer doesn’t use the Windows Installer service so it doesn’t know anything about any previous installs. If it finds a notes.ini in the path it will rename it instead of overwriting it to prevent data loss.
So I try to recover, renaming my R6 notes.ini back, and pointing the R5 logo specifically to its own .ini. But you can’t do that for R6, that option is greyed out (why), so now R6 is pointing to the R5 .ini.
Although you can’t change the properties of the default desktop shortcuts created by the N6 installer (because they are “advertised” and under the control of the Windows Installer Service), you can create new shortcuts with the command line option to specify the alternate notes.ini location.
So I uninstall R6, and reinstall, but the install put the data components in the R5 data directory - yes, I did specify the right data directory, but installer doesn’t care (it gets that bit of info from the registry).
Because we only support one version of the Notes client on a machine at a time the default behavior is to install on top of the last install you did, which was R5. We are planning on changing this in 6.5.1 so that the 6.x last install location takes precedence. Unfortunately this behavior also occurred in the R4 to R5 timeframe so this is not a new bug because we use “registry” now. You can work around this by editing the HKLM\Software\Lotus\Notes subkeys.
Do you want me to go on ranting? A whole day lost, and no-one can tell me yet what we’ve gained by using the registry.
This was not a rant, this was a list of questions with specific details, unlike your previous posts. Feel free to continue to post either. I think for the most part the problems you have are with the Windows Installer service. We have always used the registry, to some extent even in R3.31. We switched to using the Windows installer service due to customer requests.
Subject: Registry - why, oh why, oh why!!!
On the weekend i got a virus that ruined my registry.
I had to reinstall Windows, into a new directory ‘Windows2’ ( so i wouldn’t lose all my files ).
I had to reinstall a few apps to make them work, but my R6 i just double clicked on it and it worked like a dream.
Wouldn’t this give the assumption that there are no registry keys ?