Re: %AppData% on Windows instead of %UserProfile% by default?

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2014 17:26:12 +0100
> From: Alexander Shukaev <address@hidden>
> 
> Could you give some motivation behind using %AppData% on Windows instead of
> %UserProfile% by default for "emacs.d" location?

First, %AppData% is a subdirectory of %UserProfile%, so it's not like
this is a totally different place.

More importantly, we are following the platform guidelines, which
say:

CSIDL_PROFILE          Version 5.0. The user's profile folder.  A typical
FOLDERID_Profile       path is C:\Users\username.
                       Applications should not create files or folders
                       at this level; they should put their data under
                       the locations referred to by CSIDL_APPDATA or
                       CSIDL_LOCAL_APPDATA. 

(You can see this at
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb762494%28v=vs.85%29.aspx.)

> Also, why is the location of "emacs.d" on Windows is primarily
> controlled by %HOME%, rather than %UserProfile% once again? %HOME%
> is not a native environment variable on Windows, while %UserProfile%
> is.

When Emacs on Windows starts up, if %HOME% is not defined in the
environment already, Emacs defines it to refer to %AppData%.  See
w32.c:init_environment for more details.

> Please, let's be consistent across platforms.

I think we are, as much as practically possible.