Potential problem

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Vorg
Posts: 27
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:15 pm

Potential problem

Post by Vorg »

While looking through the truespace forums, something was mentioned that could be a problem for ReactOS installs. They where talking about putting Truespace on a Usb drive to move between computers and one of the comments was the other computer may not have the redistributables or up to date DX. I have run into several programs that just install dlls, DX, what ever without asking. These programs would trounce ReactOS and/or replace ReactOS files with MS files causing many problems and even bringing the system to an unbootable state. Will ReactOS have a write lock on the OS folder tree to prevent unauthorized writes such as these?
FlyingIsFun1217
Posts: 475
Joined: Sun Jun 10, 2007 3:56 am

Re: Potential problem

Post by FlyingIsFun1217 »

Those programs should let you choose whether or not you want those installed, since you need to agree that you have a valid windows install before microsoft will let you acquire and dx dll's.

FlyingIsFun1217
Vorg
Posts: 27
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:15 pm

Re: Potential problem

Post by Vorg »

Civ 4 was one of those that installed DX over a working and up to date dx without asking during install.

You can't depend on people to do what they are suposed to.
vicmarcal
Test Team
Posts: 2733
Joined: Mon Jul 07, 2008 12:35 pm

Re: Potential problem

Post by vicmarcal »

Vorg...right now there are some developers in #reactos channel. It seems to be a nice detail, the DX problem.So may u go to #reactos channel and tell them this issue? :D
cppm
Posts: 289
Joined: Wed May 02, 2007 10:03 pm

Re: Potential problem

Post by cppm »

Programs should run the DirectX installer, rather than blindly copy dll's into the system. I doubt that MS would allow independent software providers to bundle the DX dll's outside of the official DX package and accompanying installer.

In the case of the DX installer, it checks the version that is currently installed. So far wine has got around this issue by always reporting the latest version of DX. However this may mean issues later on up the line.

Are you sure that Civ4 actually installed DX? Games vary, some just run the DX installer without asking, and although it looks like it's installing DX it actually does nothing because the MS installer has checks built in.

PS:
Vorg wrote:Will ReactOS have a write lock on the OS folder tree to prevent unauthorized writes such as these?
It should do, this is just one example of what can go wrong if programs are allowed to mess with the system in such a laissez-faire way. even if they can put their own files down in the system directories, they certainly shouldn't be allowed to overwrite existing system files without first escalating into some kind of protected priviledge level.
Vorg
Posts: 27
Joined: Fri Apr 27, 2007 10:15 pm

Re: Potential problem

Post by Vorg »

Yes it did reinstall dx over dx because at that time, there was a quark that the video driver needed to be reinstalled after DX anytime dx was reinstalled and the video drivers had to be reinstalled after.

And there are always going to be lazy programmers that don't care where they dump their crap. Just because it can from a big name company doesn't mean you can trust them to follow any kind of standards. In fact they can be trusted the least because they think they are so big/popular they can do as they please and standards will change to follow them.
GreatLord
Developer
Posts: 926
Joined: Tue Nov 30, 2004 10:26 am
Location: Sweden

Re: Potential problem

Post by GreatLord »

ReactOS will not care if dx file being overwriten by ms dx files. anyway ms dx files works partliy in reactos.
The goal is ms dx files should work in reactos and reactos dx files in windows 2000/XP/VISTA.
NT4 dx are diffent, the reason I think ms did not continue the dx for NT4 was that gdientry1-16 in gdi32.dll works diffent.
example modex is in one of the gdientry in NT4 but in windows 2000/XP/VISTA it been replace with complete diffent api
The fun thing is the ground for dx in vista are same as windows 2000 after long time examie it more, Yes I got Vista64 now
And working from it. The diffent is allot new api for dx, they have move in some api to gdi32, thuse api did exists in own dll file.
They does not longer exists as standalone, and some api are new. How it load the driver dx are almost samem but few diffent
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