[Windows] Install suggestion

I have just reinstalled XBMC when I noticed that where I am supposed to place my plugins is in my Admin account. I have 2 accounts on my HTPC, one for Windows Admin and the other for XBMC. Now I could have setup the install to place plugins in my XBMC account but then that account would require admin privileges and I really do not like that. Is there no way to have the plugins folder in my XBMC account without admin privileges? I would really like that option in future releases.

Just copy them across.

The only "fix" for this would be for the installer itself to request privilege escalation. Not sure if NSIS can do that or not.

Alternative (which we want to do but it's not a high priority at the moment - i.e. patch welcome) is to copy on first run.

Cheers,
Jonathan

Maybe I don't get this right. Atm the installer requests the highest level to install the files and call the redist/webinstaller stuff. No matter under which user I install it (admin or non privileged) it always installs the plugin under the current username.
There's a NSIS plugin to somehow use the Windows UAC but didn't found the need yet.

Would be better still if it just used portable install mode and didn't require any installer... a nice trend in Windows at the moment.

I do understand dependencies will have to be installed, but the XBMC payload would be just fine as a zip.

On XP SP3 the installer will not function if you attempt to install to program files from a non-privileged account. At least that's what happened last time I tried it.

I don't see any benefit with a .zip file where the user has to create a folder manually.

jmarshall Wrote:On XP SP3 the installer will not function if you attempt to install to program files from a non-privileged account. At least that's what happened last time I tried it.

I don't see any benefit with a .zip file where the user has to create a folder manually.

The benefit of the Zip is to operate in true portable mode, unzipping into any folder. No install trace, no questions, just a simple extract and run...
And it gets rid of that awful confusion many windows users face with their profile data vs portable data and end up having two configs!

Since XBMC already has portable mode capability, the Zip's a lot less hassle.
I stick my XBMC on a USB stick and can run it from the stick, or deploy it onto multiple machines with ease... the installer offers me nothing (other than reminding of the DirectX dependency)

Just a suggestion, but it's something Portable Firefox, Portable Thunderbird, Portable Opera and many many other greats apps are adopting, no harm in XBMC doing it.

Sure, but there's zero point in offering this instead of the installer.

Alongside the installer, sure.