getting rid of Windows registry entries

[donovaly]

IM currently requires a registry entry either in HKLM or HKCU where the locations of the delegates are stored. This requirement makes it impossible to install several programs that use IM:
Assume program A as well as Program B use IM to convert images. So what happens is that the user installs
- first program A and this program writes the required registry entry
- second the program B is installed. but also this one has to write the registry entry
- as consequence only Program B works correctly because for program A the registry settings are no longer correct and the IM version from Program B is used
- now think that the user want to use only program A and therefore uninstalls program B, then IM is not working at all because the uninstaller of program B had to delete the registry values it once wrote.

As you can see the registry values only lead to problems, therefore I request to change IM's behavior so that if no registry entry is found by IM, it uses the delegates it finds in its subfolders. So if e.g. the program convert.exe is called and this does not find a registry entry where to look for the delegates, it then looks in its subfolder "modules\coders".

This would solve many problems because then every program can ship the IM files as for all other third-party programs and call the convert.exe without being forced to write anything in the preamble which can destroy the setup of other programs.

[henrywho]

Or search in the following order:
1) same directory or specific subdirectory of convert.exe/magick.exe
2) environmental variable (e.g. MAGICK_CONFIGURE_PATH)
3) HKCU
4) HKLM

[donovaly]

Or search in the following order:
1) same directory or specific subdirectory of convert.exe/magick.exe
2) environmental variable (e.g. MAGICK_CONFIGURE_PATH)
3) HKCU
4) HKLM

I fully agree. This would solve the problems I mentioned and I think this easy to achieve.