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#185315 08/09/07 11:05 AM
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hi there...

i am an ircop over on irc.bondage.com and we are getting oodles of complaints from users that have been downloading the new 6.3 version of mirc. apparently, despite telling it to KEEP their settings... all the settings are poofing and they are unable to find the options to re-create their own personal lil nirvana in a chatting experience. many are soliciting simple fixes... but some have lost everything. most are not using scripts or add-ons.

can someone look into a possible GLITCH in saving or re-applying the chatters previous settings??

thank you... annie

ffoxy_lady #185317 08/09/07 01:18 PM
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I know this doesnt help the situation, but I ALWAYS copy my whole mirc dir to another folder before updating in case of screw up during instal and Im recommending this to your users. once it's installed, if their settings are lost, they can just copy all the files back over and keep going.

Does that fix the problem? Nope, but it does give you guys a way around it for now until a reason and or fix can be found. Does it give them an error? Does it freeze at all during instal? Do they stop it during instal? More information (such as OS being used for example) would be needed to help find the cause.


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ffoxy_lady #185348 08/09/07 09:48 PM
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The first thing you should do is remind them that no one's lost anything. The way mIRC looks for files differs in mIRC 6.3 to finally make it a *proper* multi-user application. Secondly, mIRC copies all files into the_mirc_directory\backup during the install, so their files should still be there. However, mIRC will no longer use an mirc.ini file located inside Program Files\. This is because of the above mutli user support, as well as vista compatibility-- instead, these new mirc.ini files will be stored within the Application Data folder under the user's home directory. The reason it may seem that they've lost everything is that mIRC is now reading the newly installed mirc.ini file from their Application Data folder rather than the Program Files\mIRC folder-- the data was not deleted, moved, or changed; its only being ignored. To properly use the files COPY (not cut) the files that mIRC backed up into, *I think*:

WindowsXP:
C:\Documents And Settings\%USERNAME%\Application Data\mIRC

Windows Vista:
C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\mIRC

To run multiple copies of mIRC from the same user account using different mirc.ini's you can also run mirc.exe with the proper command line switches to either run it in portable mode (which will automatically take the mirc.ini from the current directory) or using the -i switch to manually specify an mirc.ini by the location on disk. See /help Command Line for that info


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argv0 #185402 09/09/07 04:43 AM
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If i remember correctly, didnt it say somewhere that mirc will use settings inside of program files (same place as mirc.exe) if a mirc.ini is present in the folder?


"Allen is having a small problem and needs help adjusting his attitude" - Flutterby
Om3n #185432 09/09/07 12:07 PM
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Vista virtualization makes for "weird" outcomes when a program tries to open a file with write access when the file has no write permissions in folders such as program files.
Most likely you are actually accessing a file in the virtualstore instead of the one in program files.

Really 2 things come to mind with that:
-this "feature" of mirc supporting settings if they exist in program files, should have never existed
-more importantly Vista virtualization should have never existed(and should be turned off). Results vary wildly.

bits #185439 09/09/07 03:12 PM
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If mIRC.ini is in the mIRC folder, that is the file that will be used for settings. I'm not sure what happens if you do that in Vista since Vista doesn't let you write to the Program Files\ folder. It does work as expected in XP and is a good thing to have for those of us who prefer to keep everything in one place. If you don't want to use Program Files and/or you're on a single user system, it is much easier to just have everything in a single folder rather than trying to jump around into appdata folders. It also makes is much easier to create a single backup file for mIRC+settings+scripts. Otherwise, you have to backup 2 separate folders and then merge them. A waste of time, imo.

As a note, the backup procedure may back up or reload from the appdata folder instead of checking for mIRC.ini. I'm not sure if that may have been missed when making 6.3 and I don't have Vista to test on.


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Om3n #185456 09/09/07 07:33 PM
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From versions.txt
Originally Posted By: versions.txt

20.For Vista compatibility, new installations of mIRC now save all
settings in the User's "Application Data\mIRC" folder by default.

However, if the installer or mIRC find mirc.ini in the same folder
as mirc.exe they will use the mirc.exe folder for all settings.
Users installing over an old version of mIRC should therefore see
no change in behaviour.

The installer is now also aware of administrator and standard user
accounts and installs mIRC accordingly.


I'm not sure if this applies to Program Files\, because that would break the whole purpose of adding Vista compatibility, as bits mentioned. If it does-- anything beyond the mirc.ini (possibly the mirc.ini itself as well?) will write to the VirtualStore directory under the user's home directory.


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argv0 #185591 11/09/07 12:59 PM
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Does the whole virtualstore use still happen when running under an administrative user account? i dont think it should, but i am not familiar enough with vista's virtualstore and havnt messed with it myself.


"Allen is having a small problem and needs help adjusting his attitude" - Flutterby
Om3n #185595 11/09/07 01:33 PM
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I don't think vista allows applications to write to the program files directory regardless of the user account type, aside from installation that is.

RoCk #185596 11/09/07 01:38 PM
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Since I don't have Vista to test with, I've been wondering about something since all of this started... Everyone says how Vista doesn't let you write to the Program Files\mIRC\ folder. But what about if mIRC isn't installed in Program Files at all? If you have it in c:\mIRC\, can you write your settings into that folder without problems in Vista? If you can't write them to that folder if you *Install* there, what about if you copy mIRC there *after* installing so that Windows doesn't have the correct location in the registry? I'm just wondering how thorough Vista is.


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Riamus2 #185597 11/09/07 01:48 PM
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I think vista always redirects applications to and from the virtualstore directory even if mirc was just moved there and was previously installed in program files on xp or whichever. So it would basically ignore whatever is in the install directory (program files\mirc) and redirect mirc to virtualstore which would make it like a new/clean installation.

~ Edit ~

I think I'm going to install vista on vm again and learn all I can about this because I get a lot of questions about it myself and I haven't yet used vista (for everyday use) because I don't like it.

RoCk #185801 14/09/07 10:08 AM
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The default users are still administrators under Vista but under the control of UAC(you're a supervised admin).

Reads from program files is allowed and is where Windows first looks, it is only if you try to open the file with write access that Windows will direct the program silently to the VirtualStore. Often programs start without write access to files they are accessing and swap to write access only when it needs to. So you'll find mirc reads the "real" file until you try to modify the file and all of a sudden mirc will be reading and writing in the virtualstore(unknowingly) instead, yet on next load it will be back to reading the real file that was not updated etc.
VirtualStore only exists to try and help allow a few more programs limp along under Vista until they are updated to be fully compliant with multiple/limited users

You can create folders in the root of c: (but not actual files).
c:\mirc\ would have no UAC restrictions and full read/write for administrator accounts is allowed. Altho if that programs tries to access program files/HKLM etc, those actions will still be virtualized.

Ofcourse the folders are dynamic, the ones that count under UAC are %homedrive%(root only), %programfiles%, %windir% and %allusersprofile%. Also in the registry HKLM is protected and virtualized.


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