When overwriting existing installation, installer pops error messages about unwritable files in ArcGIS directory

[jjr8]

This occurs because the ArcGIS directory is set to read only during the previously-run installation process. We probably do not want to support installing overtop an existing installation. But if we can do it with minimal work, we should.

I don't think there is a facility in distutils to detect the existing installation, or even execute code prior to it installing stuff. This could prevent us from fixing this problem so long as we want to mark files read only. Per the recommendation of ArcGIS documentation, we should leave the .tbx file read only. Also, I have seen Arc save changes to the .tbx even when you didn't want it to do so.

[jjr8]

Until distutils supports a preinstallation script, or we decide to use some other setup technology that supports one, this cannot be fixed.

[jjr8]

Reopening this ticket. It turns out that distutils DOES support a preinstallation script for bdist_wininst. For an example, see  http://bugs.python.org/issue1465834. See also  http://mail.python.org/pipermail/patches/2004-February/014167.html.

I will at least look at this for 0.6. I'll postpone it to 0.7 if it appears complicated.

[jjr8]

Postponing to 0.7. It doesn't look that complicated, but we need to get 0.6 out the door.

[jjr8]

This issue is being addressed by ticket #334. Closing this one as a duplicate.