[tex-live] problem reinsstalling Windows TExlive2005

[gnwiii at gmail.com]

On 6/24/06, Sebastian Canagaratna <s-canagaratna at onu.edu> wrote:
> Hi:
>     I installed Texlive 2005 successfully on windows XP, but because I
> found it difficult to get it to work with Xemacs so I unistalled it and
> installed Xemtex.

I avoid Win32, but the recent emacs+auctex bundle has worked well as
long as I remember to close the acroread window before regenerating
PDF's (if was using Win32 a lot I'd put pdfopen/pdfclose into auctex's
configuration).

> This had other problems, so I  unsintalled it and reinstalled TexLive.

What problems?   When multiple apps don't work properly there may be a
hardware problem, disk problems that can be cured with a "chkdsk/f",
etc., or misconfiguration.
With Win32 starting from a clean install (with all the security
patches) is often faster and gives a better end result than endless
chasing problems.

> Now I get the error:
>
>  error copying "C:/TexLive2005/texmf/web2c/fmtutil.cnf": no such file
> or directory. The program selects automatically texmf-var/web2c; I seem
> to recall that the first time the directory was texmf-web2c for TEXMF.
>
> THe details for the error gives:
>
> while executing "source $filename install"
> invoked from within (if file exist (file dirname $sourcedir) tlpm.exe)
> then
>   {source $filename install}
>  else {
>       tk_message ... etc
>
> I tried all kinds of things like deleting the old TeXLive2005 directory
> before reinstalling, but nothins seems to work. I have tries both the
> dvd and the cdrom, both give the same result.
>
> Have I change unwittingly changed something, or is there are problem
> here?

Check http://www.tug.org/pipermail/tex-live/2005-October/009109.html
for details
of a problem in the way the PATH is handled in the registry.

I installed and uninstalled TL2005 test versions on a couple systems
that had xemtex
"uninstalled", but haven't tried it with the final version.  My
experience has been that "uninstall" doesn't always clean everything
from the registry and environment.  After an "uninstall" it is good
practice to verify that all traces are removed using regedit (make
backups!) to search for entries that should have been removed.  I also
examine the output of the "set" command in a cmd.exe window for
references to the unistalled software.  For testing, I just renamed
the old texlive2005 directory so I could compare with the new install
to see what changed.  I also like to snoop with regedit and "set" to
see what was added after each install, so I know what to look for when
verifying a "remove".

I think the installer docs tell you what variables and registry
entries are used by TL2005.  From memory, the texlive2005\bin\win32
directory is added to the PATH,
and entries for PERL (PERl%_LIB?) and a temporary directory are added.
 Fptex put a lot of stuff in the registry that didn't always get
removed by "uninstall".  Xemtex and TL2005 were much less annoying
(e.g., either they don't set much or the uninstall is better).

-- 
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia