[Distutils] windows overlay files

[Robin Becker]

Hi,
I hope some windows expert can assist me with a production problem. We support a 
user using windows who reports problems concerning missing attributes. Using 
GotoMeeting we inspected the file together and see that the attribute should be 
present. I asked them to zip up the reportlab folder from site-packages and the 
module that is in the zip does not have the attribute. Puzzlement!

Searching reveals this

> Due to security features introduced with Windows Vista (UAC) any
> non-Administrator program that tries to write to protected locations
> such as "Program Files" will get their writes caught and redirected to
> an alternative "user friendly" location.
>
> The program that made the file will be able to see the file, but most
> other programs will not.
>
> Files written to "protected locations" will end up in a parallel file
> structure under C:\Users\[username]\AppData\Local\VirtualStore, but
> will appear to the program that created them as if actually in the
> intended location.


so I'm wondering if this is such an issue. The user has a 4 year old version of 
reportlab and doesn't wish to upgrade.  In the past, when they had XP, we used 
to support minor fixes by modifying the modules and having them overwrite the 
installed versions in site-packages files.

Clearly if some kind of security issues are in place which causes this kind of 
double file problem, then overwriting the python will not always work. In 
addition it may be that users can't write the pyc or something.

Does anyone here have experience of these issues? Will I be forced to maintain 
patched installers etc etc? Is there some trick like having an administrator 
write the files?
-- 
Robin Becker