[Build/Install] MSI installer hoses Path environment variable in 2.30.1.
Ported Issue from Mantis Original ID: 2293 Reported By: RunnyNode
SEVERITY: CRITICAL Submitted: 2013-06-09 13:23:08
OS: WINDOWS XP
OS BUILD: SP3
PLATFORM: X86
DESCRIPTION
There's already been a report of the installer wiping out Path. I've found that the problem is a little more complicated, which may be why not everybody is reproducing it (if you don't look closely, you won't see what's happening). Rather than simply overwriting Path, the MSI installer seems to be removing part of the existing Path. In my case, I had:
%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;C:\totalcmd;I:\EmEditor;I:\PellesC\Bin;I:\LilyPond\usr\bin;I:\LAME;I:\Csound\bin;I:\SBCL;I:\sox;I:\VstPlugins\Unusual\Studio Units;I:\GTK2-Runtime\bin
After installing Graphviz, this became:
%GTK_BASEPATH%\bin;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;C:\totalcmd;I:\Graphviz2.30\bin
Looks like it's killing everything after the first app-specific entry (in this case, everything after C:\totalcmd). Obviously, Graphviz (which rocks) isn't going to win any friends if it mysteriously breaks all sorts of other software when it's installed! Hence the high priority.
STEPS TO REPRODUCE
Install on Windows using the version 2.30.1 MSI installer, while having a Path environment variable with several app-specific folders in it (obviously, you should save your Path variable before trying this!).